tl;dr Bernie can probably count on his hard-core Bernie bros, but not a whole lot else. Because the Hillary-haters now have a lot of other options. So Bernie’s going to have to work a lot harder to get to the same level he got to last time around. Which ain’t looking good for him.
Bernie is more a VP, since so many don’t like him, or so msm tell us, but enough do to make him hard to remove. Aka pence religious block. That was Clinton’s mistake, her inability to unite the party was so glaringly obvious. So my bet is neither Clinton or Bernie will be in it.
…”Hillary-haters ” ..what you don’t (or don’t want to, more likely) seem to get is that most US voters weren’t and are not today “Hillary-haters” but hate what she is the very symbol of..Liberalism, she is like the centrists very own Ayn Rand, proudly the figurehead on a sinking ship.
You and the establishment Democrats desperately cling to and defend a defunk and hated ideology passionately, one that is being rejected right into your face…and the result of your lack of self analysis… Trump, pure and simple, yes it was you and people like you gave the World Trump, so job well done there pal.
But you still bang on and on about Hillary-haters and Bernie Bro’s, fuck is that best you can do, is that all you have got…oh no that’s right you have the Russians to blame too.
BTW your FiveThirtyEight has got it’s prediction wrong so many times, and has been outed as being pro Hillary (centrist) so many times I am surprised you would use such a compromised source as your lead in your comment…try better next time.
On Trump…
“Trump has a better chance of cameoing in another “Home Alone” movie with Macaulay Culkin — or playing in the NBA Finals — than winning the Republican nomination.”
” Trump’s support will probably fade. Or at least, given his high unfavorable ratings, it will plateau, and other candidates will surpass him as the rest of the field consolidates.”
“Our emphatic prediction is simply that Trump will not win the nomination. It’s not even clear that he’s trying to do so.”
I could go on and on and on with FiveThirtyEight’s and Silvers completely wrong predictions, but why bother…you trust anything and anyone that supports your views no matter how fucked up they are… including the FBI now I believe.
Fine with me, so how about we compromise?
You guys settle it down with all the fruitless but seemingly endless defence of your broken, debunked centrist Liberalism and Russian conspirisory rabbit hole rubbish, and I will settle down on my critiquing you for it.
Sound fair enough to you?
Just for you, Adrian. A roundup of the highlights of what’s been publicly exposed of the Chump campaign’s dodgy dealings with Russians and some others. Be warned, just the highlights is already a longish document. Covering all the important details would be bigger than War and Peace.
Look I have already read enough of this rubbish to know it is just smoke and mirrors involving a lot of really dodgy people doing what they do…dodgy things.
Lets get down to the actual reality in the world today with some facts we can all agree on and can’t argue with and then let’s digest that information and then on the balance of this undisputed information make a judgment of Trump/Russia.
Facts.
!. The USA is the most dominate power in the World both financially and militarily.
2. The USA has historically shown it is seriously interested in maintaining that hegemony.
3. The USA would like to see President Bashar al-Assad removed from power and have intervened to that end through military and other direct aid.
4. The Russian have assisted President Bashar al-Assad remain in power and have intervened to that end through military and other direct aid.
5. The USA would like to see the Ukraine removed from Russian influence and have intervened to that end through military aid and other direct aid.
6. Russia have sought to remain influential in the Ukraine and have intervened to that end through military aid and other direct aid.
7. The USA would like to see Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro removed from power in Venezuela, have offered aid and recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate head of that country.
8. Russia would like to see Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stay in power, have delivered aid to Venezuela and have not recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate head of that country.
So where on earth is this collusion between Trump and Putin in the actual real world?
I mean FFS the US have got heavy sanctions imposed on Russia, and as we speak right now a new round of tougher sanctions are being imposed.
And just for argument’s sake, say there was some sort of collusion from Russia just to get Trump in to power, then why wouldn’t the Russians use that information against Trump now to blackmail him or just expose and destroy him?
Nothing in this whole Russia Gate conspirisory makes any sense, nothing adds up, there have been absolutely no, none, zero results or wins for Putin or Russia that you could point toward since Trump got in to power that I have seen..or maybe you could enlighten me to the big ones I have missed?
If not, then what the hell are you on about?..and I mean in the real world and not in US liberal media fantasy land.
Pootee may well have filed helping out the Combover Con under “oh well, seemed like a good idea at the time” by now. If Pootee actually has something on the Dork from New York, I’m not interested in trying to speculate when or how those strings might get pulled.
Whatever the exact motives may have been, Pootee benefits from internal dissent in his perceived geopolitical opponents because by weakening them it boosts Russia’s relative strength. It also improves his domestic political position by making others look like fuckups. Fuckery in foreign countries is a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than doing the hard work to actually improve Russia for the general russian public.
I’m not interested in unpacking the deceptive framing you’ve used in laying out some of your facts. Particularly if you shift your viewpoint in some of those situations to the view of oppressed peoples trying to exercise a right to self-determination.
A, Trump and the Democrats need no help from anyone to help them both from looking like a bunch of fuckwit’s, they both do that quite brilliantly all by themselves.
B. I was not getting into anything to do with ;oppressed peoples trying to exercise a right to self-determination’ I was just stating the two country’s actions alone geopolitically in the respective contested countries,, without a motive component, so stop distracting, and stay focused on the primary subject please,
So as per usual you don’t answer any of my question..just blab something really vague that really means nothing… you know you would make a great politician , always obfuscate from actually answering any question directly.,,never a straight answer from you is there,
Adrian, the primary subject that started this thread was Bernie’s prospects in the Democrat primary this time around without Hillary as the only other choice. Which you never addressed, but successfully diverted away from.
Well as I had already exposed your dodgy link as mainly pointless, and certainly biased, I just assumed we had moved on.
I do understand that of course you will never answer my questions re; Trump/Russia because even a dedicated conspiratory nut like yourself couldn’t do the convoluted mental gymnastics needed to give your answer even the slightest hint of credibility…so to be fair to you, at least you have that much self awareness left, which is something I guess…I also think that probably in your heart of hearts you really know it’s pretty much all bullshit too…well at least I hope so.
But just for the hell of it, I ask again, what exactly has Russia gained from getting Trump elected?…something tangible and with supporting links please.
If this government were actually able to form a budget with measurable outcomes against specific wellbeing categories, it should convince us of a fresh social contract with its citizens that shows where our taxes are going, and why they should take them from us for the greater good.
That would be a stronger place from which to do any major tax reform. Until the government releases its own view in April, we get a full month of debate on tax just washing around. And until the budget in May, there’s no sense available of how tax from citizens provides whole-of-country outcomes. So that’s another month of debate without stabilization.
If as the PM signaled recently, many budget wellbeing categories are still too hard to measure after a year of trying and preparing for this budget, any refreshed sense of government taking from our income with good reason will remain elusive.
They are going to get lampooned from both sides unless the April tax announcement and May budget are deadlines to Ministers to rebuild the national narrative about tax and common outcomes.
It doesn’t mean “the vision thing”. It means a bit of logic, easily communicated, about what they are trying to do, from tax to outcomes.
The Government should have it’s ‘own media communication system in place’ to carefully set the records straight by now well ahead of the release of the final draft inn april/may.
The stupid Labour party Minister who was irresponsible back in November 2017 (Claire Curran) when she stuffed up so badly, as she had wrecked any chance of labour having any ‘media platform’ – as RNZ was meant to be is been totally taken over and run by a bunch of ‘helicoptered in National Party supporters’ who every day give more air time to the National opposition party’s stupid false claims.
Labour now should be pointing out any merits the tax plan may have, such as funding the broken infrastructure all around NZ; – caused by National’s nine years of “deferred maintenance”; – as they robbed the public purse for;
* flag referendums.
*boat races.
*Warner Brothers movies.
*Saudi sheep trade deal bribes.
*Four lane ‘roads to no where’.
Labour now must spend $50 million to construct their own TV/Radio public service network like TV7 was.
And keep the useless Claire Curran well away from broadcasting wrecking for life.
Claire Curran could only be useful as the Minister of Parking Meters.
Are you seriously suggesting that the labour party, who happen to be in power, spend $50m of taxpayers dollars to create their own TV/Radio “Public Service” network?
Why not as your National Party spent lots for a flag and sheep for saudis, so Labour should do the same too; – fair enough?
I suppose you will say Labour are different eh?
This is what I really think;
The ‘Kiwi way of life’ is a low imagination horizon anti intellectualism based on exploitation”
I came back from 10yrs away working in Canada from 1988 to 1998, and suffered a large shock as most of my mates were either without jobs anymore or had a broken marriage.
National was in Power then remember?
It seemed that while away ‘rogernomics’ had gutted the country and closed most of the local regional HB/Gisborne businesses down.
Then when ‘John Fucking Key’ the slimeball came along he just totally dredged the place, to close down and steal anything he could finally sell.
I don’t have much respect anymore for politicians now, because they say what you want to hear.
When in Government they just don’t do much at all.
I just hope Jacinda doesn’t let us all down as they all have before.
“I just hope Jacinda doesn’t let us all down as they all have before.”
Unfortunately I have to say that I wouldn’t be holding my breath on that one.
The beating heart of any political movement when in power, is it’s economic ideology, everything else is dictated to by this one element, that is just a fact of political life in a democracy, and unfortunately for us the economic ideology of New Zealand Labour under Jacinda Ardern is by and large on of free market liberalism.
The link below is a very good read, although it doesn’t cover the Ardern govt, I don’t think anyone would argue that Ardern’s vision for NZ is to far removed from Helen Clarks….
I’m not going to take issue with issues on the matters you’ve additionally raised. I have a different view on some and the same on some.
What I can’t abide, and I would have said the same if national had done it while in power, is the idea that government should set up additional public broadcasting at the behest of its supporters and advocates.
It’s like if the government founded Facebook then used it as a medium to spread its message. There is no independence. It would be a new Pravda, completely berefit if anything of anything of value to the electorate as a whole.
I’ve been on a couple of those roads recently.
One was from Paekakariki to Peka Peka. That is SH1 north of Wellington for your information.
Another was something called the Waikato Expressway.
They both seemed to be very good roads and certainly weren’t roads to “nowhere”.
On the other hand I have seen people claiming that building a new railway line from Napier to Gisborne would somehow be sensible. Now that really is an unneeded transport route to nowhere.
I suppose they might get a little train once a week.
I have no doubt there is more than that.
However, unless you go back to the dark ages when we forced people to move their freight by rail if it was more than about 30 miles in the 30’s and 40 miles in the 1960’s I doubt if people will choose to put too much freight back on the railways.
I don’t think people will really want to go back to the multi handling required to get goods to the rail, shift them onto and then transport them by train and then transfer them back to trucks for delivery.
They got off rail as fast as they could when the restrictions were finally scrapped in 1983. https://www.kiwirail.co.nz/about-us/history-of-kiwirail/150yearsofrail/stories/road-transport-regulation.html
By the way, when you purport to quote me by putting words within quotation marks, why don’t you do it accurately?
I didn’t say ” one small train a week”.
I said “a little train once a week.”
I quite agree there is not, in this case, a significant difference in meaning but it annoys me when quotes are not accurate. It also leads to people claiming X said Y ever afterward when it simply isn’t true.
It is also much easier to get the quote of course. If you are a slow typist like me a cut and paste is far faster than typing it out.
I’ll take your word for the 2021 projections.
However I see that in 2018 99.3% of the exports were logs. http://gisborneherald.co.nz/localnews/3324691-135/record-year-for-port
I find it hard to believe that very much, if any,of that would have come from anywhere served by a Napier/Gisborne railway.
On the rail line of course.
Logs are already trucked from the forest to the railyards. Then dried before being trucked again. At present they are picked up again by trucks, because there is no rail line. There is no more handling by rail. Less in fact, at the port. Discharging individual trucks as they arrive at random, is a problem for ports. Playing havoc with labour and plant scheduling. Except for Lyttelton, who seem unable to get their shit together, trains can be scheduled to fit in with ships working.
Just like Northland. Which I can confirm because I had a job one year, counting all the cut timber between South Auckland and North Cape.
Currently logs are trucked from the old rail depos to Northport. With all the resulting problems and costs. Because some National party twat, cancelled the line to the port.
Most people seem to be unaware how long haul trucking works.
It is depo to depo, just like rail was.
Smaller trucks do the local delivery.
If trucks had to pay all their roading costs and externalities, almost all long haul would be ships or rail.
As it would have stayed, if trucks had to pay their full road costs right from the outset.
Every successful initiative has measurement at it’s core. If we don’t measure we don’t know where we’ve been, what we’ve got or how to expend energy to get to where we want to be.
Non measurement is the best way to disguise a window-dressing plan with little chance of success.
Is Whanau Ora working? Crap measurement….we haven’t got a clue.
Businesses that don’t measure quickly fail.
We measure alienation by measuring what it produces. Well being is measured by monitoring the components of what we consider to be living well. eg: Health – hospital admissions, Prozac sales. Education, income equity etc.
Not sure about that – there are intangibles that don’t lend themselves to quantification.
It would be nice to have a joined up vision – but there’s plenty of firefighting to be done in the meantime. People with their feet to the fire want action more than they want a mission statement.
I hear you Stuart, but disagree. Intangibles are an amalgamation of tangibles.
eg: I love ice-cream. My love is an amalgamation of texture, flavour, temperature, packaging, price, availability. Because of the tangibles, I love some ice-cream more than others. My love can be measured.
Mission statements aren’t measuring, they’re a disguise for it. eg: ‘We want to build the best car in the world’.
Back when I was a quality assurance enthusiast, I’d’ve told you desirable intangibles are emergent properties of systems that successfully deal with negative facets. So not quite an amalgamation but a product of one if all the negatives are recognized.
Mission statements ought to be relatively important, but most enterprises in NZ don’t use quality as a competitive strategy, so they’re more of a lip service for certification purposes than the kind of thing you get from reading Imai.
NZ Post just went down $101 million on an updated computer system I think. Now it is unlikely that they commissioned this in house. There are many ways that the government can’t guarantee that they will be able to do everything they envisage in a timely, efficient manner. If we did more through our public channels with reasonable criteria and measures. likely we would do better when aiming for a timely, workable, cost efficient model. And allow for some over-runs.
(Aside. A chap who has been living in China. married there, bought an apartment there. Knows about the place says that there are cracks appearing in the apartment walls. Places were thrown up to take advantage of the property boom – thrown up, and now settling down apparently – all over the place. Bit shonky.)
We are in lala land now where people set impossible unreasonable targets. Very little will ever turn out as envisaged and budgeted for. Let’s do the limbo, lower the target and effectiveness will go up.
Limbo! Can we bring house prices down so that our discretionary spending comes up?
That Civilian piece was comedy gold. The amount of hysterical shrieking going on over this is jaw-dropping. Watching National Party MPs ducking and diving over their vast portfolios had me grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Well… erm, I do have a few properties, but they’re mostly my wife’s. And some are in a trust so they’re not technically properties at all… they’re just… things in a trust. But the real issue here – the real issue, is hard-working mum and dad investors, blah, blah, drone, drone, squirm, squirm…”
And Simon “Attack on the Kiwi way of life!” Bridges is the gift that keeps on giving.
It’s a shame that more of the land is leasehold rather than freehold. Then proper use of water and tratment of the soil could be enforced. And being twice removed from his land would have a different meaning. Three strikes and you’re out would too.
That sounds weird. I mean it would be better if most of the land was leasehold rather than freehold. Government lease, Maori lease, with a limit on renewable periods. Otherwise, with renewals of long leases, it can be a virtual alienation of the land.
I see a 40 year Mp veteran has left the uk Labour Party ( now 9) Scathing of Jezzers, not fit to lead, anti Semitic and extremist I don’t think the coming of Jezzer and uk Labour is likely any time soon
there have been a lot of Corbyn fans on here who have been overlooking the anti Semitic nature of the Labour Party and momentum movement for a long time.
They are enablers.
Lucky Corbyn is the best thing for the Tories since forever.
Just as anti-semitism and criticism of Israel are two different things, believing Corbyn specifically is anti-semitic and believing that anti-semitism seems to be tolerated by the Labour hierarchy are two different things.
VOR McFlock
Voice of Reason. Israel government should listen to you. They are sort of throwing dildos in the world’s faces, saying hah we can do anything wish. Because we have been so badly treated. we will never have to say we are sorry for anything. There have been horrible happenings elsewhere though.
The Israeli govt is what it is, and I strongly suspect the current regime plans to eliminate the ghettos in the next 50 years.
But their claims of antisemitism to deflect from their fascism are essentially background radiation in this. The tory bleating is a bigger source. But a few of those clicks on the geiger counter seem to come from UK Labour, from what I’ve read.
If it is the former, then that is shameful beyond words.
If it is the latter, then my interpretation is they are anti the Israeli government which comes under the auspices of politics. Everyone is entitled to have their political views no matter how repugnant some of them may be.
So, which is it James? To ‘mix’ the two together in order to smear a political party – and I suspect that is what is happening to the UK Labour Party – is dishonest to the point of disgusting given the subject matter.
For the record, I have met and befriended many Jewish people over the years. I never met one I didn’t like and whose company I didn’t enjoy. On the other hand, I think the current Israeli government has become a hard-line, war-mongering nation that practices excessive brutality. I have been told that many of its inhabitants think like-wise.
Edit: I’m not doubting there is some anti-Semitism in UK Labour but that, imo, would be the case in any political party. Anti-Semitism is an irrational and emotional response to generations of bigotry and prejudice and exists everywhere.
And most Jewish peoples are not Semitic, they are Jewish by conversion not genetically, I wouldn’t see Corbyn as being discriminating to Jewish people but supporting of Palestinian aspirations. Some see that as anti semitic.
Probably the most anti semitic statement ever written on this site.
The mental contortions you must go through to justify your anti-semitism?
Labour insiders leave labour over anti-semitism, but according to corbyn’s supporters it doesn’t exist as the new independents are blairites? go figure
I don’t want to get into this discussion re whether Corbyn is anti-Semitic or anti-Zionism – or IMHO more probably anti the current Israeli government – as it is a very complex situation; but I really was more than astounded (to put it mildly) at your statement that:
‘ And most Jewish peoples are not Semitic, they are Jewish by conversion not genetically”
This is an enormous subject which has attracted and continues to attract many differing opinions and theories; and a considerable number of genetic studies including DNA testing of many of the different groupings of Jews. Results have been variable depending on these groups.
Some DNA studies of Ashkenazi Jews (those who dispersed through the Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe and then spread into Eastern Europe for example) have suggested that they may have little genetic relationship to their original Middle Eastern ancestors and that their genes seem more related to early European women in particular. However, these results are disputed by some and also contrast with the results of DNA testing of other groups of Jews such as Sephardic Jews who descend from Jews who settled in the Iberian Peninsula, and Mizrahi Jews, who descend from Jews who remained in the Middle East.
While Ashkenazi Jews make up the majority of Jews throughout the world (eg roughly estimated at about 70-75%), even if the DNA studies of Ashkenazi Jews are accepted this does not necessarily equate to proof that they are Jewish by conversion.
Conversion to Judaism is in itself a complex subject ranging from the very strict rules relating to matriarchal lineage of the ultra orthodox Jewish movement through the slightly less restrictive modern Orthodox; through the next main group of Conservative movements formed as a halfway house between Orthodox and Reform theology and practices; then the much liberal, progressive Reform groups; and to the much more recent groups formed in mainly Anglophone countries including Reconstructive Judaism which emphasizes modernism and gender equality etc.
I really don’t want to get into a further discussion on this – or to divert from the main discussion on Corbyn etc – but merely wanted to provide the above as a caution against using or accepting such general statements as if they are fact.
PS – I have now seen Tuppence Shrewsbury’s comment. While I won’t go as far as that, this is the third time in as many months that I have read very generalised statement re Jews here on TS. I responded to the first ( re whether Jewish people are often quoted as aspiring to their children become doctors, or now lawyers). but ignored the second despite the fact that it was a very ignorant and confused statement based on – wait for it – an article in TeenVogue magazine. Sorry. but not letting this one past without comment.
(Please note the other two comments were by another commenter – not Psych Nurse).
Interesting ‘rant’. Anti-Semitism is of course a real thing, and has some very deep roots in European history. The genetic aspect is also interesting as well, and has some very real outcomes.
Clearly the Jewish people constitute a very complex community and treating them all as one ‘identity’ group is a fail for a start. The story of Israel as a nation is also central to the Western narrative. Many, many complex threads and themes.
Just read an article on fb book about the anti Semitic claims, that show the facts of the complaints of anti-semitism. None against Jeremy Corbin, complaints rigorously investigated, most not upheld, those that were got expulsion.
Amazing how the right and the msm will try and spin a narrative
James have you ever watched an investigation called “The Lobby”? it’s from 2017
Al Jazeera Investigations exposes how the Israel lobby influences British politics. A six-month undercover investigation reveals how Israel penetrates different levels of British democracy.
Anti-Zionism is deliberately conflated with anti-Semitism to suppress legitimate criticisms of Israeli policies.
Episode Three: In part three, our undercover reporter witnesses a heated conversation between two opposing activists. The evidence raises serious questions about whether accusations of anti-Semitism are used to stifle political debate.
Yes the conflation of anti-Semitism with anything critical of the state of Israel is a tactic that has been around for a few decades now.
It’s a very common technique to discredit your opponents that we see used a lot these days; taking usually selective misquotes from a source and then deliberately attaching them to a different, darker agenda that you can then attack freely.
It goes beyond the mere strawman, into something more corrosive and perverse.
Agreed – but I will throw another spanner in the works.
That is, IMO opinion “anti-Semitism” should never be conflated with “anti-Zionism”. BUT nor should either of those terms be conflated with being anti the current Israeli government and its policies/practices.
Zionism used to have and should still have a very different meaning, aspiration to what now existing in terms of the current Israeli state/government and its policies/practices.
Sorry, will just leave it at that as need to go out and I have already done a long rant at 6.1.3.1.2 above today about a generalised statement made above re Jews and Judaism.
This’ll be a controversial comment. For years after WW2 many Europeans and non-Europeans alike used the terms Nazi and German synonymously. This was caused by their direct and indirect experiences and the compelling war (and post-war!) propaganda machines. It has taken 2-3 generations to disentangle these terms and the German people and governments have worked hard to help this along. The Wall came down and the unification is still a work in progress but perceptions have slowly changed over time.
If the criticisms about UKLabour were restricted to that level, I’d agree.
Most of the criticism against Corbyn personally seems to be a beat-up, a politician associating with folk just because politicians associate with lots of folk and some of them might have unsavoury aspects.
In May 2011 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) evaluated cancer risks from radio frequency (RF) radiation. Human epidemiological studies gave evidence of increased risk for glioma and acoustic neuroma. RF radiation was classified as Group 2B, a possible human carcinogen. Further epidemiological, animal and mechanistic studies have strengthened the association.
In spite of this, in most countries little or nothing has been done to reduce exposure and educate people on health hazards from RF radiation.
On the contrary ambient levels have increased.
In 2014 the WHO launched a draft of a Monograph on RF fields and health for public comments.
It turned out that five of the six members of the Core Group in charge of the draft are affiliated with International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), an industry loyal NGO, and thus have a serious conflict of interest.
Just as by ICNIRP, evaluation of non-thermal biological effects from RF radiation are dismissed as scientific evidence of adverse health effects in the Monograph. This has provoked many comments sent to the WHO.
However, at a meeting on March 3, 2017 at the WHO Geneva office it was stated that the WHO has no intention to change the Core Group.
THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AND EMF
Dr Leeka I Kheifets
World Health Organization
Tel: +41 22 791 49 76, Fax: +41 22 791 41 23, Email: kheifetsl@who.int
Our bodies are naturally tuned between a low frequency between 308 – to 504 Hz, and were not capable of sustaining high frequencies as we now.
We must use the ‘Precautionary Principal’ just as Government uses it’ all the time when they impose more ‘compliance’ rules upon us all every day.
Find a farmer, they speak for all farmers,any farmer. Ask them to conflate benefits and a CGT. Speak to emotion, that they are just jealous of farmers, farmers work hard for every cent. Now you have your classic turd blossom. Hard too attack since where to start, the fact that less than 5% of the poorest people have a overwhelmingly say in the present govt, or that farmers in NZ compete against Australian farmers who do pay CUT. So what hard work,the hard work making up turd blossoms to keep that artificial govt subsidy of not pay CGT that competitors do. Oh, and you’ve ever wonder why subsides are bad, they hand people more income than the market actually was goibg to, that makes it easier to take more risks as farmers have more money, and so drives up a risk premium. Yes, NZ farmers laziness makes Australian bankers richer. A dairy farmer,say, competing with a Ozzie diary farmer can take a bigger risk in expanding their dairy. So let’s call the farmers out, their subsidy just makes them more reckless and the Aussie banks soakup the benefits. There should be a reason for every legislative difference between oz and nz or they should be removed. why don’t we have a CGT. Not why should me lifestyle be subsidized so that I can make profits selling homes to each other, and padding bankers with fees.
Foriegn farmer, business owner comes to NZ to find out why he gets beat by kiwi hard work, turns out his jealousy at our lack of CAT is miss placed, it should be pity, that we incentivized taking, expand put non productive sectors, and breed farmers who think its just the poorest jealous of their subsidized success.Bet the free press aren’t going to characterize farmers as beggars desperate for a free ride from the tax payers. What no farm subsidies in NZ, no CUT is a farm, real estate, risk premium nightmare. why are the neolibs backing a zero rate CGT, its not good economics.
soddenleaf
Rant right! I might agree if I could find an end to paragraph and capture the whole idea illustrated there. Sometimes it just comes pouring out sure. Why not take a minute and press enter at appropriate full stops. Don’t chuck the whole brick, get a better result from a number of smaller ones from different dangkles. (That’s a typo but I thunk it lookds good so I’ll leave it for decoration.)
It is so important Labour is re-elected in 2020.
A one term Labour Gov’t would see all the fairness go out the window.
While this would mean the the over due evolution of a new party
in the mean time National would dominate for another decade.
So Labour needs to win while also evolving into a new party.
A tough ask but essential.
2020 is a defining year for Labour and all who rely on her
Tell that to the daughter of a NZ cancer patient who recently wrote an open letter to the PM pleading for more public money to be allocated to funding new cancer treatments.
Would an effective CGT, of the type most other developed countries have, be one way of publically funding these new treatments?
Or we could just flog off the other half of our electricity providers to private interests – but only once.
Are these new cancer treatments curative or just lengthening time left. What do you think would be a fair approach to our health system and the afflicted person? Have an understanding that we will try to give the patient at least six month perhaps a year of low pain and good mobility time with family, and time to carry out some of the dreams that were in mind for later?
How does that sound? The new drugs are very expensive and i hear demands for them to be rolled out so the diseased person can constantly put off dying at great expense to the country. Being fair should work both ways.
There do appear to be some instances of the new treatments being genuinely curative. Jimmy Carter is probably the highest profile example of Keytruda apparently helping to completely eradicate the metastasised melanoma he had in his brain and liver.
But those instances of complete cure are still very rare and it’s still mostly very expensive life extension for a few months or at best a few years.
To answer your question probably not, most of it lost in administration, poor government spending and dead weight loss to the economy in increase in unproductive services like lawyers, valuers and accountants. Simiilsrky whst will impact of CGT on productive sector, less growth, investment, entrepreneurship, less jobs meaning less jobs and income tax / gst This is before even mentioning forecasting level of taxed raise is highly dubious, Not even Warren Buffet can tell you where asset values are heading so would not trust those clowns in government or wonks in treasury As it is it could be negative tax if assets start falling and people can offsetting capital losses against thier income CGT is not a magic bullet with many possible unintended consequences
Bewildered, thanks for your considered, honest assessment.
It seems that things haven’t been too rosy in the public health sector of late, what with concerns about deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate funding for new drugs, not to mention over-worked nurses and (junior) doctors striking for better conditions.
IF you accept that NZ’s universal publicly-funded health system should not be allowed to deteriorate for lack of funding, then how best to secure the funding necessary to adequately support the professional efforts of public sector health workers?
If increased taxation is an idealogical no-no, then how else might the Government go about it? Assuming that you think a universal publicly-funded health system is a good idea.
“On average, other wealthy countries spend half as much per person on healthcare than the U.S.”
Its important to understand how public funding works. At any time the government can afford to purchase anything for sale in $NZ, that is all there is to it. Any further discussion is about the impacts of the governments taxation and spending decisions on the economy which are difficult to predict (and the budget forecast is frequently quite far off on many key variables within months of being issued).
To put it simplistically (but correctly) the govt can today afford to fund these treatments and chooses not to do so.
Yes Rata, and when you get told by Bewildered not to rely on any Government, when he/she is so obviously a Tory LOL LOL. Comments from that person have always dissed the Coalition and lauded National.
We definitely need a Labour led Government for 3 electoral terms to establish a fairer system.
Good News!
Another step in freeing Julian Assange,
Authorities confirm Assange’s Australian passport was renewed last October.
“The implication is that DFAT’s decision to renew the passport several months later was based on an assessment that Julian Assange is “not the subject of an arrest warrant in connection with a ‘serious foreign offence.’”
Julian Assange was a great help in inserting a wedge in the cogs of the powers’ people-wheel. They resented that and had to find something to darken his wan cheeks. Luckily they found something sexual. Otherwise they might have had to resort to announcing that he couldn’t pee straight.
He definitely deserves our consideration, kindly that is, forgiving if necessary.
That linked article sums up this nasty episode very thoroughly Adrian.
This story has been thrashed over many times here in the past and I’ve no wish to re-open them, but hell the longer this goes on the more absurd it becomes.
Yes it is all very Kafka at this point, strangely it reminds me a lot of the many critiques that made their way out, from within the Stalinist regime during it’s ascendancy.
There are apparently no warrants, just a pissy little jumping bail charge. Six months, a year at the outside, he’s done with the entire issue. Probably with greater freedom of movement than he currently has. Or are the brits now going to rendition him to the USA? Because didn’t he flee to the UK to avoid that eventuality?
So he left Sweden and went to the UK to avoid rendition, but now apparently Sweden no longer wants him so he stays in the embassy to avoid rendition from the country he fled to in order to avoid rendition.
The situation Assange is in now, not to mention how he got there, may indeed seem a ‘bit weird’.
Despite Trump’s campaign assertion “I love Wikileaks“, if I was in Assange’s shoes right now I’d have to think really carefully about simply walking out of the embassy. Honest!
“Asked whether it was a priority for the justice department to arrest Assange “once and for all”, Sessions told a press conference in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday: “We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks. This is a matter that’s gone beyond anything I’m aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious.”
He added: “So yes, it is a priority. We’ve already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.”
Sessions is no longer attorney general, but the U.S. administration-led crusade to prosecute Assange has been going on for many years – it’s more than just personal.
How does that differ from when he was asked to attend a second interview about sexual assault allegations?
The yanks want him in a yank jail. If he fled Sweden and jumped bail in the UK because he thought the Swedes would send him to the US if he were extradited to Sweden, didn’t this fear evaporate when the Swedes withdrew their EAW? He walks out of the embassy, does a month or two for bail-jumping, and leaves it all behind him.
Thing is, I reckon there’s a really good chance that he only fled to the safety of the USA’s closest ally in order to avoid plain old sexual assault allegations. If it was a genuine concern, he would have copied Snowden.
Maybe he believes his own bullshit now. That’s probably poetic justice.
You could be right that “there’s a really good chance” etc., but Assange fled a bit further than to the USA’s closest ally.
I get that you would take the gamble, but your suggestion that Assange is (now) too self-deluded to correctly evaluate the risk to his future life and liberty seems a bit of a low blow.
Whatever happens, his name and achievements will outlast most – maybe that’s some consolation.
The dude’s been staring at the same four walls for a while now. That can do bad things.
If I didn’t know it was a gilded cage he selected for himself, probably to avoid accountability for actions in his personal life, I’d be inclined to sympathy.
As for his achievements, Wikileaks and encouraging the use of protected leaking was a tremendous good. Doxing female Turkish voters was a bad thing.
But people and groups can be more than one thing, and complicated. And sometimes the drive and self-image that enables the good also enables the bad (Churchill also comes to mind with that).
I didn’t ask you any of those questions, nor am I interested in your opinion on those matters, so now about you just answer the simple question that I proposed to you three questions ago please.
Would you walk out of the embassy today if you where in his position?
Well I will send you a care package c/- Guantanamo bay, obviously you have plenty of trust in the American justice system it would seem, I know I don’t….might see you in about 10-15 years if you’re lucky.
“The visit came a day before Assange received bad news from the US, where a federal judge refused to force the Justice Department to admit the existence of what are believed to be criminal charges laid against him in secret.”
“The existence of the charge has long been rumoured and was all but confirmed by a mix-up in a Virginia court last year, when an otherwise unremarkable document filed by a government lawyer referred, out of context, to “the fact that Assange has been charged”.
So as soon as he step out of the embassy, he will be renditioned by the yanks? From downtown London? And if they have a formal criminal investigation, why would they send him to Guantanamo, which is for people without an actual criminal or POW status (which is why thay’re using non-US soil)?
Walk me through the process here. How does he get from the front door of the Ecuadoeran Embassy in London all the way to Guantanamo?
“Walk me through the process here. How does he get from the front door of the Ecuadoeran Embassy in London all the way to Guantanamo?”
Obviously I was using Guantanamo as analogy of the US’s complete lack of interest adhering to any international law if it does not suit them.
I was just assuming that you would understand that this lack of regard for the rule of law that could so easily be applied to someone like Assange that has been so openly threatened by so many powerful people in powerful positions in the US would make you a little more circumspect about walking out that door, I know wouldn’t walk out that door, Assange wisely does not, no it is only you who seem to think that the Yanks are just a bunch of forgive and forget kind of guys..you know let bygones be bygones…Yeh right.
It appears that ‘last word-McFlock’ (just a bit of fun) has reopened this case – not sure that was necessary, but I’ll bite.
Here’s a remote, but (IMO) not inconceivable sequence of events – note that since I have no legal training it should be fairly easy to shoot down.
1. Assange steps outside the embassy, is arrested by MET police (tipped off by an Ecuadorian embassy ‘friendly’ on retainer) and detained. [“The Metropolitan police have previously said he would face immediate arrest if he left the embassy, for breaching the terms of his bail conditions when he sought asylum.“]
2. The US asks its “closest ally” (your words) to facilitate extradition of Assange to the US, where he is incarcerated pending trial. It’s unlikely that Assange would be granted bail while awaiting trial, since he had previously skipped bail, or failed to appear in court, or whatever.
3. If normal U.S. legal conventions (Law & Order) are followed, then it might take several appeals before Assange eventually winds up in Guantanamo or some other ‘correctional’ facility.
Don’t know whether you auto-dismiss Guardian articles; this link is just evidence that a little over 3 months ago senior news writer Esther Addley was thinking along similar lines, at least for the for the first few ‘steps’.
State authorities can occassionally be quite vindictive when it comes to making public examples of those who have inconvenienced ‘the state’, and revealing secret machinations is an inconvenience.
rephrasing an unasnwered question within a couple of hours is hardly “reopening”, but whatevs.
1: yes, because he jumped bail.
2: if the yanks request extradition, Assange is well-versed in delaying proceedings. And of course US proceedings against him will have to be formally and openly at a level where he would have been charged under UK law. And I suspect the reasons for extradition would be highly challengable under UK law, anyway.
3: If he is extradited to the US, he will be delivered to US soil, so he will have constitutional safeguards (which is why they used a base on Cuban soil in the first place).
And he only faces this issue because he jumped bail in the first place. Otherwise the yanks would have asked for him when he was walking around London.
If I were Assange, would I accept an invitation to do a speaking tour of the US? Shit, no. Would I plea bargain with the CPS for maybe a couple of months jail or a fine for bail-jumping? Rather than spend another X years in the embassy, yup, I’d definitely see what they had to offer.
McFlock, regarding ‘reopening‘, I was refering to your 3:16 pm 25 Feb. “crickets lol” comment (taunt?), posted some 40 hours after your 10:56 pm 23 Feb. comment, which might have been the last word in your back-and-forth with AT, but for ‘crickets lol’.
Since you already had the last word (10:56 pm 23 Feb), I interpreted (perhaps misinterpreted) your “crickets lol” comment, some 40 hour later, as a taunt to the effect that no-one had rebutted your ‘last words’.
I support your right to assert that if you were in Assange’s shoes you would walk out of the Ecuadorian embassy. We’re all individuals.
I’d asked a genuine question, and got a non-answer. So I asked it again, and gave Adrian enough time to give a geniuine answer. So upon receiving none, I highlighted that fact.
Your scenario includes extradition to Guantanamo. That’s not why Guantanamo or indictments exist. To get to Guantanamo, he’d have to be kidnapped off the streets of London. Chain of custody records being what they are, he’d actually be safer in a British jail than walking around, if G was a genuine likelihood. And he’s pretty safe in the streets of London, because he’s famous. It would be difficult to anonymously kidnap him and then get him out of the country.
But G’s not in the picture for Assnge, because apparently the yanks are trying to run him through their legal process. That means public trials in the courts and appeals in the UK, then public trials and appeals in the USA. He’s rich and white, he’s got a better chance than most, even if they try to extradite him. And espionage against the US is much less a universal charge than sexual assault.
The 40-hour separation between your consecutive replies to AT had me wondering why, so thanks for the explanation/justification, and kudos for “highlighting that fact“.
Agree that Gitmo seems a very unlikely final destination, but mental health facilities have been beefed up.
Interesting article. I doubt they’ll get anywhere though – they seem to be under the impression that the current US regime gives two fucks about pretending to give two fucks about international legal bodies. It’s difficult to get worse in that regard than some previous administrations, but this lot manage it.
This country (NZ) cannot go on having more people coming into use our infrastructure.
We have such a ‘small tax base’ – so get used of more taxes; – until we have all our infrastructure system around NZ upgraded to a 21st century model, so we can cope to take more people.
It would probably be rather nice to have a 21st Century infrastructure in New Zealand.
The problem is that our current Government seems to want to spend the money on early 20th century cycle tracks. 19th century railways and even earlier provisions for horses. What is it that makes Tsar Winston want to provide tax deductions for people who buy “pretty racehorses”?
Are you aware of the role some zoos play in the recovery of species about to go extinct?
For instance, the San Diego Zoo played a big part in saving the California Condor from going extinct, and their Center for the Recovery of Endangered Species is currently active in many programs on their sites and out in the field. Auckland Zoo is active with the kakapo effort, native frogs, bats and insects, plus undoubtedly a whole lot more I’m not aware of.
Even when zoos don’t have direct endangered species programs, they will often participate in worldwide breeding programs to maintain biodiversity. This is especially important for species that only have remnant populations in the wild.
Yes, without zoos these programs might continue. But zoos are a good way to put together large and diverse teams of specialist professionals that really do work well together for these species recovery programs. As well as being effective places to publicise how badly fucked up our natural world is getting.
that might be true, but essentially only because us humans are so prolific at killing of wilderness everywhere to the point where wildlife now needs to live in a Zoo in order to save the species.
what i would like to know is why 4 baboons had to be killed. Socials structure break down, would that be the natural happening of a younger male maybe challenging and defeating an older male? and the response to that would be ‘kill them all and let god sort them’?
So yeah, it would be nice why these four apes had to be destroyed in order to save the zoo or whatever.
Yeah, I’m fkn furious we humans have so badly fucked up the world we live in that those sorts of measures are needed. But compared to the emotional investment the people directly involved in species recovery put into their work – well – my anger seems like a token gesture. As much as we’d like it to be different, that’s the world we’ve made and live in and have to try to do our best with.
essentially zoo’s should be shut down, one after the other. If we can’t have the species survive in the wilderness that we have not yet killed off then they don’t need to survive in a zoo just so that we have something to gawk on on days were we need entertainment.
The spokesperson said that others had already died, and a dynamic had been set up so that their behaviour was set on destructive and they expected that if left to work itself out, they would continue to attack, injure and kill each other.
Sure, good on them. To me zoos are a disconnect from nature. I also have a dubious moral objection in that I believe in the intrinsic value of living entities in and of themselves, just for existing, and I feel zoos lower that value by objectifying the creatures no matter how many extra years they live. But the dubious bit is that my caring is also as exploitative as the zoos, just more speciesism.
I also think it’s the way it goes that species go extinct. It’s more human hubris imo to try and stop them all because we can hardly stop any and why anyway? Cos we like them? Cos they were pretty? Cos the ecosystem will suffer? It’s all a bit silly really.
I’ve visited areas that have been re-wilded, and been privileged to see California Condors living back in the wild. Those experiences are some of the very few things that give me hope we can salvage something good from the disaster coming at us.
That zoos might be refuges and reservoirs for re-establishing a natural world sometime in the future goes some way towards mitigating what’s wrong with them now. Further, most zoos have an honest commitment to continuously improving animal welfare. If they didn’t, I’d be a lot less willing to argue that they have redeeming features.
Wow, when I said much the same thing about species becoming extinct a few days ago I was jumped on with hobnailed boots.
I am pleased to see I am not the only person contributing to this site who doesn’t think that the current lot of species on earth at this date must never be allowed to change.
Alwyn, when you write in favour of allowing (some of) “the current lot of species on earth at this date” to ‘change’ [i.e. ‘go’ extinct], does that include Homo sapiens?
Not sure if anyone has seen this article on the stuff.co.nz website? About EQC and the National Disaster Fund. Since 1988 the NDF was seen as a great big honey pot by the pollies and treated it as an IOU and that’s before we even start taking about “No Mates Party” who stopped paying into EQC in the 1990’s. To make matters even worst both EQC and the NDF while managed by the muppets at Treasury until recently.
From my POV, It’s probably no wonder why there is a lot a talk of a CGT being introduced into NZ when the Neo Con/Lib vandals of both major parties since 1988 had their hand in the honey pot. Trying to rebuild the funds up a hurry before the next major natural disaster or CC related event without cutting all the Government Depts like the last bunch of muppets did, so they could get their so surplus and instead of trying to rebuild/ increase fund the NDF and EQC.
Not too much different from ACC, accumulating money to fatten it up for sale, and make the Government accounts look better, rather than paying out to claimants.
We will see a lot more of this come to light as the Neo-liberal civil service, is slowly purged of ACTiods.
When you read this story why don’t you also look at what the New Zealand First Party want to do with the Cullen Fund.
They want the Government to spend the money on their own personal infrastructure projects.
““New Zealand First would encourage the fund’s managers to invest in infrastructure in New Zealand so it works for New Zealand’s long term interests,” says Mr Peters.”
You can ignore most of the rest of the story. That is just Winnie’s usual b*s. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1709/S00281/cullen-fund-performs-but-national-taxes-it.htm
Just what do you think is going to happen when the money is needed from about 2040 or so and it has all gone into politicians stupid hobby horses?
The best thing to do with the Cullen Fund of course is to pay it back to individual taxpayers and encourage them to put it into their personal Super Funds.
Then the taxpayer can provide the General Super from taxes as they do now. That is what is going to have to happen anyway once the bloody politicians have squandered away the Cullen Fund..
I agree. Super should be PAYGO, from taxes, as should Government investment.
Privatising super has worked just as well as all the other privatisation. Putting money into private super schemes, is unlikely to survive the next GFC.
Another reason why we all invest in houses.
Better to invest more taxes in public works, education and development, which will increase the wealth available in future,
However the level of infrastructure, services, health and housing investment required, either needs more taxes, or more borrowing.
I favour more taxes, or QE, tempered by taxation, as borrowing means we all pay more in the long run. It just makes banks rich.
Cellular DNA damage
Glaser (1971); Yakymenko et al. (1999); Aitken and De Iuliis (2007); Hardell and Sage (2008); Hazout et al. (2008); Phillips et al. (2009); Ruediger (2009); Makker et al. (2009); Yakymenko and Sidorik (2010); Batista Napotnik et al. (2010); Yakymenko et al. (2011); Pall, 2013, Pall, 2015b; Asghari et al. (2016); Pall (2018)
Changes in testis structure, lowered sperm count/quality:
Glaser (1971); Tolgskaya and Gordon (1973); Aitken and De Iuliis (2007); Hazout et al. (2008); Desai et al. (2009); Gye and Park (2012); Nazıroğlu et al. (2013); Carpenter (2013); Adams et al. (2014); Liu et al. (2014); Houston et al. (2016); La Vignera et al. (2012); Makker et al. (2009)
Neurological/neuropsychiatric effects
Glaser (1971); Tolgskaya and Gordon (1973); Raines (1981); Lai (1994); Grigor’ev (1996); Hardell and Sage (2008); Makker et al. (2009); Khurana et al. (2010); Levitt and Lai (2010); Consales et al. (2012); Carpenter (2013); Pall (2016b); Belyaev et al. (2016); Kaplan et al., 2016, Sangün et al., 2016
Apoptosis/cell death
Glaser (1971); Tolgskaya and Gordon (1973); Raines (1981); Yakymenko et al. (1999); Batista Napotnik et al. (2010); Yakymenko and Sidorik (2010); Pall, 2013, Pall, 2016b; Asghari et al. (2016); Sangün et al. (2016)
Calcium overload
Adey, 1981, Adey, 1988; Walleczek (1992); Yakymenko et al. (1999); Gye and Park (2012); Pall, 2013, Pall, 2015a, Pall, 2015b, Pall, 2016a, Pall, 2016b); Asghari et al. (2016)
Endocrine effects
Glaser (1971); Tolgskaya and Gordon (1973); Raines (1981); Hardell and Sage (2008); Gye and Park (2012); Hardell and Sage (2008); Makker et al. (2009); Pall (2015b); Sangün et al. (2016); Asghari et al. (2016)
Oxidative stress, free radical damage
Raines (1981); Houston et al. (2016); Hardell and Sage (2008); Hazout et al. (2008); Desai et al. (2009); Yakymenko and Sidorik (2010); Yakymenko et al. (2011); Consales et al. (2012); La Vignera et al. (2012); Nazıroğlu et al. (2013); Yakymenko et al. (2015); Pall, 2013, Pall, 2018; Dasdag and Akdag (2016); Wang and Zhang (2017)
‘European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker plans to write to Orban to congratulate him on his victory, according to a commission spokesman. “The European Union is a union of democracy and values,” he said, adding that defending these principles and values is the duty of all member states…
….But German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who is also the chairman of the Bavarian conservative party CSU, was a very prominent exception.
“I’m happy about his electoral victory, which was once again a very clear one,” Seehofer told reporters in Munich.’
‘By the close of the ongoing budget negotiations in November 2018, Germany will have to decide on the future of its armed forces’ long-term recovery. ‘
‘A German return to traditional power politics certainly has its risks. But the alternative is to maintain the status quo and forego a joint EU security policy…’
As they say, & these are just some examples, like begets like (ahem, Brexit folly). Most societies will have unaccountable elites to some degree. It is inevitable that as the current cycle stumbles with the inevitable multiple pressures of a reset, increasingly chaotically, that the pockets of such elites will emboldenly pressure increasingly regressive directions to put off their further social dislocations to the redundancies of unwarranted privilege and having to pay their tab, by filling the vacuums.
The alternative is classical commonwealth trading practises, which derive from civic societal structures & virtues, internally & thus in due course to external added value relations. Despite our own Natia, NZ isn’t far, relatively, from the potential in it’s general cultural fabric & approach to be a contributing template setter to a different type of winning with trading block associations.
A returned Labour-led government and CGT in some form is looking good. My conservative old Dad read out Bernard Hickey’s piece from the other day over dinner tonight and is in total agreement that productivity and investment has been skewed in this country because no-one has had the guts to do it so far.
Also, Ardern and Robertson have played this well because to argue against a CGT on property now looks mean and out of touch.
Once the government have consensus on what parts of the TWG CGT recommendations they are going to proceed with, Ardern needs to prepare a ground-shaking, nation-changing speech about why this simple act is crucial to the healthy future of this country. She needs to have points in it which are easily revisited and recounted every single time they are required over the next 18 months.
The greedy Nat voters who have had their hand out for free gains over the last 20 years will have no shame in demanding their gravy train continues. Their screeching needs to be calmly rebutted.
Jacinda Ardern has the ability to change this nation for the better forever. It’s a 100 year moment coming up folks. Let’s back her.
Yes Rata, and when you get told by Bewildered not to rely on any Government, when he/she is so obviously a Tory LOL LOL. Comments from that person have always dissed the Coalition and lauded National.
We definitely need a Labour led Government for 3 electoral terms to establish a fairer system.
It was a put down of West Auckland. He spat it out, or is that just his faux accent?
Also interesting was his claim that his parents didn’t own their home when he was growing up, and that that was “doing it tough” and “being on the breadline”. Only education got him through the horrors of living in a rental!
If today’s Waitakere Man thinks Bridges is batting for him, he is mistaken.
Umm. Lime, disruptive tech star-up, app driven new kids on the block, resort to good old automated email spam to try to drum up support for their failed scooters.
Not sure the council is going to be too happy about considering their case after this stunt.
Why am I underwhelmed by their protest action, and the method of protest, having injured hundreds of people after dumped 1500 scooters on the street on NZ with not a care in the world.
I was out and about in Auckland today and it was Lime-free. It was a beautiful sight.
YouTube on Friday said it would prevent channels that promote anti-vax content from running advertising, saying explicitly that such videos fall under its policy prohibiting the monetization of videos with “dangerous and harmful” content. The move comes after advertisers on YouTube pulled their ads from these videos, following inquiries from BuzzFeed News.
On the night he cheated the Amercian people of the White House Administration.
Eco Maori could see on trumps and his whanau face that they could not beleve there reality they had cheated and WON The President of The Power Fullest Country of the Papatuanuku.
That is a big problem to the welbeing of te mokopuna and the world as he started changing good enviromet rules in favour of his Oil Barron M8 at the expence of te mokopunas future hence trump GETS ECO MAORI,s FULL WRATH P.S A Kumra never tells how sweet it is
US special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report is there in plain view
Donald Trump was in full deflection mode.
The Democrats had blamed Russia for the hacking and release of damaging material on his presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump wasn’t buying it. But on July 27, 2016, midway through a news conference in Florida, Trump decided to entertain the thought for a moment.
“Russia, if you’re listening,” said Trump, looking directly into a television camera, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” – messages Clinton was reported to have deleted from her private email server.
Actually, Russia was doing more than listening: It had been trying to help Republican Trump for months. That very day, hackers working with Russia’s military intelligence tried to break into email accounts associated with Clinton’s personal office.
It was just one small part of a sophisticated election interference operation carried out by the Kremlin – and meticulously chronicled by special counsel Robert Mueller.
RUSSIA, LOOKING TO INTERFERE
The plot began before Bernie Bros and “Lock Her Up,” before MAGA hats and “Lyin’ Ted,” before there was even a thought of Trump versus Clinton in 2016. It started in 2014, in a drab, concrete building in St Petersburg, Russia.
There, a group of tech-savvy Russian nationals, working at an organisation called the Internet Research Agency, prepared “information warfare against the United States of America.” The battleground would be the internet, and the target was the 2016 US presidential election.
Using a game plan honed on its own people, the troll farm prepared to pervert the social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram – that Americans had come to depend on for news, entertainment, friendships and, most relevantly, political discourse.
It was a long game. Starting in mid-2014, employees began studying American political groups to see which messages fell flat and which spread like wildfire across the internet. The organisation surreptitiously dispatched employees to the US – travelling through states such as Nevada, California and Colorado – to collect on-the-ground intelligence about an America that had become deeply divided on gun control, race and politics.
As they gathered the research, the trolls began planning an elaborate deception.
They bought server space and other computer infrastructure in the US to conceal the true origin of the disinformation they planned to pump into America’s social media blood stream. They began preparing networks of fake accounts they would use like sock puppets to masquerade as US citizens.
The Russian trolls set up accounts that appeared to be associated with Black Lives Matter, the Tennessee GOP, Muslim and Christian groups and the American South. By late 2015, as Clinton sparred with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination, and as American media still saw Trump as a longshot to emerge from a crowded Republican field, the Internet Research Agency began secretly buying online ads to promote its social media groups.
Smelling a possible political advantage, the Trump campaign reached out to Roger Stone, a close confidant of Trump’s who is known for his bare-knuckles brand of political mischief. Stone had been claiming to have connections to WikiLeaks, and campaign officials were looking to find out when Wikileaks would drop its next batch of documents.
According to an indictment against Stone, after the first release of DNC documents, “a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information” WikiLeaks had regarding Clinton’s campaign.
In August, Stone began claiming he had inside information into Assange’s plans. At the same time, he was privately sending messages to a radio host and a conservative conspiracy theorist – both of whom had claimed to have connections to WikiLeaks – seeking anything they knew. (No evidence has emerged that these messages made it to Assange).
The deceptions played out as Mueller methodically brought criminal cases. He indicted the Russian hackers. He did the same to the troll farm. He exposed Manafort’s tax cheating and his illicit foreign lobbying, winning at trial and putting the 69-year-old political operative at risk of spending the rest of his life in prison. And one by one, his team got guilty pleas from Flynn, Papadopoulos and others.
Most recently, he indicted Stone, accusing him of witness tampering and lying to Congress about his efforts to glean information about the WikiLeaks disclosures. Despite emails showing him repeatedly discussing WikiLeaks with Trump advisers and others, Stone told lawmakers he had no records of that sort. (Stone has pleaded not guilty.)
In the backdrop of all this is Trump and his family.
Mueller’s grand jury heard testimony from several participants of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting arranged by Trump Jr, but no charges have been filed.
The mercurial president himself has made no secret of his disdain for the Mueller investigation and his efforts to undermine it. Mueller has investigated whether any of Trump’s actions constituted obstruction of justice, but the special counsel hasn’t gone public with what he found. Ka kite ano links below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQPwcUdV5T4
Our 21,s Century Communications Device can be used for bad shit but every bit of data can be traced one can not hide anything if the resorces are given to find the data for NOW.
Once Arificial Intelligence is here that phenomen will change and the people in control of that power will have the ultimate power to manipulate te Papatunuku,s DATA Thats a fact.
Today is a day to be thankful to OUR Tipuna for the Mana they gave us as I watch the finals of Te Matatini it gives me a sore face .
For its was our tipuna,s who shaped our Papatunuku to the reality we have to day.
I watch Te Matatini and Know that the whole Papatuanuku can see Te Aotearoa,s Tangata Whenua.s Culture,s and Mana on display this is one of the reason,s that Eco Maori is proud to be a MAORI our Tipuna is another .
It is our tipuna to thank for us still having this GREAT Mana and knowone else they made the best moves they could to give us there Desendants Mokopuna,s the Mana we have Bestowed on MAORIOM TODAY Kia Kaha Ka kite ano P.S Some one is making me hungry
Kia ora The best tangata on the day won Te Matatini Tamaki Makaurau won the first prize after many years of trying to win the ultimate prize in Maoridom well deserved Eco Maori says Kia kaha to all Ka kite ano
Kia ora Newshub Rental housing getting a shake up by our government it is usually the poor people that end up in bad housing as discrimination plays a major part in tangata getting good homes for their tamariki.
YEA the housing short tsunami is still rolling in this will take our government a little while to get undercontrol good housing is getting very hard to find .
Wairoa a beautiful little town got a few whanau there.
Shut up that lawyer putting his spin on that story on R Kelly.
Te Matatini was great and is getting greater the next competition is in this years winners home of Tamaki Makaurau Ka pai
That’s awesome the tamariki getting earimplants his first words Mama so cool it won’t be long before chips implanted in the nervous system that will make us even more advanced .
Ka kite ano
Kia ora The AM Show insulationing a house and having good heating will save the tenants money on power and best of all save on health cost that action will save lives to.
Exactly duncan.
You got your m8 on early duncan no Atoearoa does not trust you simon with the economy. Only people that haven’t grown up like Mark and duncan do they have self-serving egos .
The transport agency is showing your legacy its a mess. Electric cars need to be subsidise to decrease the amount of carbon we burn building 4 Lane highway and scraping our rail is the worst thing one could do to our environment We all know who are national party big donaters are big civil construction companies they would have loved creaming that big flat 2 Lane Highway in Tauranga??? you gifted to them.
I have all ready educated te tangata on the positive,s of a capital gains tax it will slow Aotearoa,s capital from being syphoned off over Seas.
Mark you would not servive all the low down dirty tactics that goes down in the national party it will be like leaving a hyena in a room with a lamb you will not be able servive that lol.
Good on the Stars for showing their support of Harry & Megan and putting on a big baby shower some trolls don’t treat them respectfully.
Yes Phil safety is a Priority as humans don’t have 2 lives so we you must protect te tangata lives no ifs no buts make sure the lime scooters are safe Ka pai. Building a good stadium for our stars in down town Auckland will be a lot better than up grading Eden Park with all the ristrictions that are placed on the uses of Eden Park.
Frank it looks cold up there it’s cold in Rotorua.
Good teacher are a must and teaching tamariki that failure is just part of life.
A good teacher engages students on their level.
Fireworks should be only used by professionals they are big boys toys alot of young children are actually scared of them so are animals. Matariki should be celebrated as it is tangata whenua culture that needs reviveing as te culture has been suppressed.
It Just depended on how hard I’m working at the time if I was not stuffed after a HARD DAYS WORK I would help with most dermestic duties I don’t like folding clothes thou Ka kite ano
He started out with all the power and he thought he was untouchable so much for being the best deal maker in the world he has just pissed the world off and is getting his reward for doing that Ana to kai
You’re fired!’ America has already terminated Trump
The Mueller report looms but the president is doomed anyway – no one who screws the people so blatantly can win re-election
When the public fires a president before election day, as it did Jimmy Carter, Nixon and Herbert Hoover, they don’t send him a letter telling him he’s fired.
They just make him irrelevant. Politics happens around him, despite him. He’s not literally gone but he might as well be.
It’s happened to Trump. The courts and House Democrats are moving against him. Senate Republicans are quietly subverting him. Even Mitch McConnell told him to end the shutdown.
The Fed is running economic policy. Top-level civil servants are managing day-to-day work of the agencies.
Isolated in the White House, distrustful of aides, at odds with intelligence agencies, distant from his cabinet heads, Trump has no system to make or implement decisions.
His tweets don’t create headlines as before. His rallies are ignored. His lies have become old hat.
Dear Mr President,
While many of us disagree on ideology and values, we agree on practical things like obeying the constitution and not letting big corporations and the wealthy run everything.
Your 35-day government shutdown was a senseless abuse of power. So too your “national emergency” to build your wall with money Congress refused to appropriate.
When you passed your tax bill you promised our paychecks would rise by an average of $4,000 but we never got the raise. Our employers used the tax savings to buy back their shares of stock and give themselves raises instead.
Then you fooled us into thinking we were getting a cut by lowering the amounts withheld from our 2018 paychecks. We know that now because we’re getting smaller tax refunds.
At the same time, many big corporations aren’t paying a dime in taxes. Worse yet, they’re getting refunds.
For example, GM is paying zilch and claiming a $104m refund on $11.8bn of profits. Amazon is paying no taxes and claiming a $129m refund on profits of $11.2bn. (This is after New York offered it $3bn to put its second headquarters there.)
They aren’t breaking any tax laws or regulations. That’s because they made the tax laws and regulations. You gave them a free hand.
You’re supposed to be working for us, not for giant corporations. But they’re doing better than ever, as are their top executives and biggest investors. Yet nothing has trickled down. We’re getting shafted.
Which is why more than 75% of us (including 45% who call ourselves Republicans) support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70% tax on dollars earned in excess of $10m a year.
And over 60% of us support Elizabeth Warren’s proposed 2% annual tax on households with a new worth of $50m or more.
You’ve also shown you don’t have a clue about healthcare. You promised us something better than the Affordable Care Act but all you’ve done is whittle it back.
A big reason we gave Democrats control of the House last November was your threat to eliminate protection for people with pre-existing conditions.
Are you even aware that 70% of us now favor Medicare for all?
Most of us don’t pay much attention to national policy but we pay a lot of attention to home economics. You’ve made our own home economics worse.
We’ll give you official notice you’re fired on 3 November 2020, if not before. Until then, you can keep the house and perks, but you’re toast.
Respectfully,
America.
Ka kite ano Ana to kai links below P.S Te Wahine are rallying agains the domanaint old neanderthals who think that,s lifes all about the money over a humane and Equality of life for all
Kia kaha tamariki it is your Papatuanuku that the neanderthals are making a big mess of at the moment hope is here and now let your voices be heard let everyone know you want a healthy happy humane futures for all this can be OUR Reality as the many can over ride the 00.1% who run the world at the minute . The tipping point is happening{{{ NOW}}}
Christchurch pupils to strike as part of global climate change action
Christchurch pupils will stage a school “strike” and protest in the street as part of a global campaign for action on climate change.
The rally, scheduled for March 15, will run alongside several other marches across the country in Dunedin, Wellington and Auckland as part of a movement known as Schools 4 Climate Action. Tens of thousands of young people in at least two dozen countries and nearly 30 American states plan to skip school on the same day to protest.
Globally, their message is clear. They are sick of waiting for adults to save their world so they are going to do it themselves.
The movement began with 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, from Sweden, skipping class to sit outside government buildings because she believed her country was not following the Paris Climate Agreement. Since then, children across Europe and Australia have been inspired to hold their own demonstrations.
Christchurch event co-ordinator Lucy Gray, 12, said the march was an “awesome opportunity for students to stand up for what they believe in”.
University of Canterbury student Bridget White encouraged people no longer in school to attend the march, which will begin at Cathedral Square at 1pm. There will be music, guest speakers and cultural showcases from schools around the city.
Ka kite ano Links below P.S Eco Maori Knows how tech works and I make sure that te tangata I tau toko is worthy
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
A Waitangi Tribunal inquiry report has warned government that a repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act could cause harm to children in care. ...
The Treasury has published today three new papers covering government consumption multipliers, automatic stabilisers and the impacts of global shocks on New Zealand’s economy. ...
Asia Pacific Report The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now. In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ferrie, A/Prof, UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research and ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Technology Sydney PsiQuantum The Australian government has announced a pledge of approximately A$940 million (US$617 million) to PsiQuantum, a quantum computing start-up company based in Silicon Valley. Half ...
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SPECIAL REPORT:By Eugene Doyle He is the most popular Palestinian leader alive today — and yet few people in the West even know his name. Absolutely no one in Gaza or the West Bank does not know him. That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Will McCallum, PhD Candidate – School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University Earlier this year, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of not supporting Operation Sovereign Borders – the military-led border security operation that has “closed Australia’s borders ...
By Melyne Baroi in Port Moresby A Papua New Guinea MP, Peter Isoaimo, who had been ousted by the National Court in an alleged bribery case, has been reinstated by the Supreme Court on appeal. A three-member Supreme Court bench found that the National Court had erred in finding that ...
Publisher Chris Holdaway reflects on the unique project of collecting the work of the late, terrific poet Schaeffer Lemalu. One of the nice things you can do as a truly independent publisher is to make the books that writers want to make, whatever they happen to be. That’s how I’ve ...
Those profiled in the stamp series served on overseas deployments from 1995 onwards, and all have been awarded theNew Zealand Operational Service Medal. ...
Last night’s dismal poll result for the coalition government shows the limits of trying to govern as an opposition, argues Joel MacManus. There’s a quote from the American political activist Barbara Deming: “Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people’s minds, the thought ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shireen Morris, Associate Professor and Director of the Radical Centre Reform Lab at Macquarie University Law School, Macquarie University Leonid Andronov/Shutterstock Foreign interference in Australian democracy poses a growing risk to our national sovereignty. It refers to coercive, corrupt or ...
A defendant charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has pleaded guilty to four charges of obtaining by deception in relation to a mortgage fraud scheme. Sentencing has been scheduled for 14 August 2024. ...
What to say when pesky journalists ask gotcha questions like ‘can you name a single book you’ve ever read?’ and ‘did you read it, or did you just see the movie?’This week, Act Party arts spokesperson Todd Stephenson foolishly agreed to an interview with Newsroom’s Steve Braunias regarding his ...
Explainer - What will a ban on cellphones in schools achieve? Can students use them during lunch breaks? And what happens if you need to contact your child? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney Jodi Rowley, CC BY-NC-ND In winter 2021, Australia’s frogs started dropping dead. People began posting images of dead frogs on social media. Unable to travel to investigate the deaths ...
In the year ended March 2024, 0.4 percent of home transfers were to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship or a resident visa, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wasay Majid, Research Assistant , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau New Zealand’s accommodation supplement scheme is facing scrutiny, with Social Development Minister Louise Upston recently saying “there is merit in considering whether the current settings are fair and sustainable long-term”. The ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor The first prime ministerial candidate has been announced in Solomon Islands and it is not Manasseh Sogavare. The man of the hour is Jeremiah Manele, the MP for Hograno/Kia/Havulei constituency in Isabel Province, who served as minister of foreign affairs in the last government. ...
Protesting the removal of bins by leaving piles of your dog’s shit for others to deal with doesn’t make you a hero – it’s precious and entitled behaviour. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve stood on the shoreline of Auckland’s Cheltenham beach, desperately trying to scoop increasingly liquid dog shit ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon will be alert to the factors driving the dire polling, but won't be waving the white flag just yet, RNZ political editor Jo Moir writes. ...
Writer, teacher and academic Vincent O’Sullivan died on Sunday 28 April. Here we gather tributes from friends, colleagues, and students who remember his extraordinary contributions. I went down to the garage tonight. There was a bird shrieking out in the bush, in the dark, maybe a kākā. Miraculously, through the ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a burnt-out corporate escapee explains how she gets by ‘working as little as possible’. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Female Age: 31 Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: Contractor in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Schmidt, Professor of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney Albert Russ / Shutterstock The icebreaker of many a barbeque conversation is something like “what do you do for a crust?” “I teach chemistry at university,” is what we usually reply. Then silence. Our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asher Flynn, Associate Professor of Criminology, Monash University Shutterstock Sexual harassment is often considered to be a person-to-person act, but new research shows Australians are also experiencing and perpetrating workplace harassment in large numbers through technology. Our latest study shows one ...
A petition signed by more than 16,500 people, demanding the government take stronger action to halt the genocide of Palestinians by the State of Israel, is being presented to the House of Representatives today by Hon Phil Twyford. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National University jenmartin/Shutterstock April has been a bad month for the Australian environment. The Great Barrier Reef was hit, yet again, by intense coral bleaching. And Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek delayed ...
Winston Peters might not give a ‘rat’s derriere’ about last night’s poll, but it revealed the unusual absence of a honeymoon period and little payoff for the government’s action plan approach, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marco de Jong, Lecturer, Law School, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Details released by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet under the Official Information Act reveal New Zealand officials have been considering involvement in AUKUS from the outset. ...
The government's treatment of Māori raised eyebrows, with countries saying New Zealand needed to do more to reduce health, education and justice inequities. ...
The age of criminal responsibility was one of numerous human rights issues raised during Aotearoa New Zealand’s UPR. Other key themes were racism and discrimination, the disproportionate representation of Māori in prison, and to uphold the UN Declaration ...
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Above the Fold: On Monday, the biggest Māori screen production company faced down the biggest funder of Māori content at the High Court. It was an incredibly tense moment – then, just as quickly, it resolved. Duncan Greive breaks down a strange day in the screen sector.Yesterday morning, Māori ...
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It’s a ride that’s lasted almost 30 years for mother and daughter BMX riders Nancy and Toni James, and the next stop is the World Championships in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Almost 27 years ago, Nancy and her husband Gerrard took their oldest child, Daniel, to the Waitākere BMX Club. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia The rate of women killed by their partners in Australia grew by 28% from 2021–22 to 2022–23, according to new statistics released today by the Australian Institute of Criminology ...
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By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent The US Department of Justice is being urged to condemn and cease its reliance on the “Insular Cases” — a series of US Supreme Court opinions on US territories, which have been labelled racist. Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick ...
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Nate Silver takes a deep dive into Bernie’s 2016 support with a focus on the Hillary-haters’ choices, and what it means for Bernie in 2020.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-was-helped-by-the-neverhillary-vote-what-does-that-mean-for-his-chances-now/
tl;dr Bernie can probably count on his hard-core Bernie bros, but not a whole lot else. Because the Hillary-haters now have a lot of other options. So Bernie’s going to have to work a lot harder to get to the same level he got to last time around. Which ain’t looking good for him.
Bernie is more a VP, since so many don’t like him, or so msm tell us, but enough do to make him hard to remove. Aka pence religious block. That was Clinton’s mistake, her inability to unite the party was so glaringly obvious. So my bet is neither Clinton or Bernie will be in it.
…”Hillary-haters ” ..what you don’t (or don’t want to, more likely) seem to get is that most US voters weren’t and are not today “Hillary-haters” but hate what she is the very symbol of..Liberalism, she is like the centrists very own Ayn Rand, proudly the figurehead on a sinking ship.
You and the establishment Democrats desperately cling to and defend a defunk and hated ideology passionately, one that is being rejected right into your face…and the result of your lack of self analysis… Trump, pure and simple, yes it was you and people like you gave the World Trump, so job well done there pal.
But you still bang on and on about Hillary-haters and Bernie Bro’s, fuck is that best you can do, is that all you have got…oh no that’s right you have the Russians to blame too.
BTW your FiveThirtyEight has got it’s prediction wrong so many times, and has been outed as being pro Hillary (centrist) so many times I am surprised you would use such a compromised source as your lead in your comment…try better next time.
Is FiveThirtyEight Biased?
http://rhinopress.org/2016/05/31/is-fivethirtyeight-biased/
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/fivethirtyeight-0
On Trump…
“Trump has a better chance of cameoing in another “Home Alone” movie with Macaulay Culkin — or playing in the NBA Finals — than winning the Republican nomination.”
” Trump’s support will probably fade. Or at least, given his high unfavorable ratings, it will plateau, and other candidates will surpass him as the rest of the field consolidates.”
“Our emphatic prediction is simply that Trump will not win the nomination. It’s not even clear that he’s trying to do so.”
I could go on and on and on with FiveThirtyEight’s and Silvers completely wrong predictions, but why bother…you trust anything and anyone that supports your views no matter how fucked up they are… including the FBI now I believe.
Was that cathartic?
I find pointing out your regular partyline regurgitated buillshit is actually pretty boring and tedious actually.
It’s okay if you choose to stop doing it.
Fine with me, so how about we compromise?
You guys settle it down with all the fruitless but seemingly endless defence of your broken, debunked centrist Liberalism and Russian conspirisory rabbit hole rubbish, and I will settle down on my critiquing you for it.
Sound fair enough to you?
good call adrian 100%
I hope they pull their heads in too.
Just for you, Adrian. A roundup of the highlights of what’s been publicly exposed of the Chump campaign’s dodgy dealings with Russians and some others. Be warned, just the highlights is already a longish document. Covering all the important details would be bigger than War and Peace.
https://www.vox.com/2019/2/21/18197995/mueller-report-trump-russia-collusion-investigation
Look I have already read enough of this rubbish to know it is just smoke and mirrors involving a lot of really dodgy people doing what they do…dodgy things.
Lets get down to the actual reality in the world today with some facts we can all agree on and can’t argue with and then let’s digest that information and then on the balance of this undisputed information make a judgment of Trump/Russia.
Facts.
!. The USA is the most dominate power in the World both financially and militarily.
2. The USA has historically shown it is seriously interested in maintaining that hegemony.
3. The USA would like to see President Bashar al-Assad removed from power and have intervened to that end through military and other direct aid.
4. The Russian have assisted President Bashar al-Assad remain in power and have intervened to that end through military and other direct aid.
5. The USA would like to see the Ukraine removed from Russian influence and have intervened to that end through military aid and other direct aid.
6. Russia have sought to remain influential in the Ukraine and have intervened to that end through military aid and other direct aid.
7. The USA would like to see Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro removed from power in Venezuela, have offered aid and recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate head of that country.
8. Russia would like to see Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stay in power, have delivered aid to Venezuela and have not recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate head of that country.
So where on earth is this collusion between Trump and Putin in the actual real world?
I mean FFS the US have got heavy sanctions imposed on Russia, and as we speak right now a new round of tougher sanctions are being imposed.
And just for argument’s sake, say there was some sort of collusion from Russia just to get Trump in to power, then why wouldn’t the Russians use that information against Trump now to blackmail him or just expose and destroy him?
Nothing in this whole Russia Gate conspirisory makes any sense, nothing adds up, there have been absolutely no, none, zero results or wins for Putin or Russia that you could point toward since Trump got in to power that I have seen..or maybe you could enlighten me to the big ones I have missed?
If not, then what the hell are you on about?..and I mean in the real world and not in US liberal media fantasy land.
Pootee may well have filed helping out the Combover Con under “oh well, seemed like a good idea at the time” by now. If Pootee actually has something on the Dork from New York, I’m not interested in trying to speculate when or how those strings might get pulled.
Whatever the exact motives may have been, Pootee benefits from internal dissent in his perceived geopolitical opponents because by weakening them it boosts Russia’s relative strength. It also improves his domestic political position by making others look like fuckups. Fuckery in foreign countries is a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than doing the hard work to actually improve Russia for the general russian public.
I’m not interested in unpacking the deceptive framing you’ve used in laying out some of your facts. Particularly if you shift your viewpoint in some of those situations to the view of oppressed peoples trying to exercise a right to self-determination.
A, Trump and the Democrats need no help from anyone to help them both from looking like a bunch of fuckwit’s, they both do that quite brilliantly all by themselves.
B. I was not getting into anything to do with ;oppressed peoples trying to exercise a right to self-determination’ I was just stating the two country’s actions alone geopolitically in the respective contested countries,, without a motive component, so stop distracting, and stay focused on the primary subject please,
So as per usual you don’t answer any of my question..just blab something really vague that really means nothing… you know you would make a great politician , always obfuscate from actually answering any question directly.,,never a straight answer from you is there,
Adrian, the primary subject that started this thread was Bernie’s prospects in the Democrat primary this time around without Hillary as the only other choice. Which you never addressed, but successfully diverted away from.
Good boy.
Well as I had already exposed your dodgy link as mainly pointless, and certainly biased, I just assumed we had moved on.
I do understand that of course you will never answer my questions re; Trump/Russia because even a dedicated conspiratory nut like yourself couldn’t do the convoluted mental gymnastics needed to give your answer even the slightest hint of credibility…so to be fair to you, at least you have that much self awareness left, which is something I guess…I also think that probably in your heart of hearts you really know it’s pretty much all bullshit too…well at least I hope so.
But just for the hell of it, I ask again, what exactly has Russia gained from getting Trump elected?…something tangible and with supporting links please.
BTW this is an open question…any takers?
Nah – let the games continue hurrah!
No compromise – the primary rule of the Beige Revolution.
Lol back in black I see.
lol
I really enjoyed this from The Civilian posted yesterday:
http://www.thecivilian.co.nz/relief-new-zealand-businesses-wont-have-to-pay-capital-gains-on-these-family-homes/
If this government were actually able to form a budget with measurable outcomes against specific wellbeing categories, it should convince us of a fresh social contract with its citizens that shows where our taxes are going, and why they should take them from us for the greater good.
That would be a stronger place from which to do any major tax reform. Until the government releases its own view in April, we get a full month of debate on tax just washing around. And until the budget in May, there’s no sense available of how tax from citizens provides whole-of-country outcomes. So that’s another month of debate without stabilization.
If as the PM signaled recently, many budget wellbeing categories are still too hard to measure after a year of trying and preparing for this budget, any refreshed sense of government taking from our income with good reason will remain elusive.
They are going to get lampooned from both sides unless the April tax announcement and May budget are deadlines to Ministers to rebuild the national narrative about tax and common outcomes.
It doesn’t mean “the vision thing”. It means a bit of logic, easily communicated, about what they are trying to do, from tax to outcomes.
you mean like a plan?……thats a novel idea
“form a budget with measurable outcomes against specific wellbeing categories,”
It shouldn’t be necessary. If you are doing this you have already lost because you are using your enemy’s tools. How do you measure alienation?
AB
The Government should have it’s ‘own media communication system in place’ to carefully set the records straight by now well ahead of the release of the final draft inn april/may.
The stupid Labour party Minister who was irresponsible back in November 2017 (Claire Curran) when she stuffed up so badly, as she had wrecked any chance of labour having any ‘media platform’ – as RNZ was meant to be is been totally taken over and run by a bunch of ‘helicoptered in National Party supporters’ who every day give more air time to the National opposition party’s stupid false claims.
Labour now should be pointing out any merits the tax plan may have, such as funding the broken infrastructure all around NZ; – caused by National’s nine years of “deferred maintenance”; – as they robbed the public purse for;
* flag referendums.
*boat races.
*Warner Brothers movies.
*Saudi sheep trade deal bribes.
*Four lane ‘roads to no where’.
Labour now must spend $50 million to construct their own TV/Radio public service network like TV7 was.
And keep the useless Claire Curran well away from broadcasting wrecking for life.
Claire Curran could only be useful as the Minister of Parking Meters.
Are you seriously suggesting that the labour party, who happen to be in power, spend $50m of taxpayers dollars to create their own TV/Radio “Public Service” network?
TS;
Why not as your National Party spent lots for a flag and sheep for saudis, so Labour should do the same too; – fair enough?
I suppose you will say Labour are different eh?
This is what I really think;
The ‘Kiwi way of life’ is a low imagination horizon anti intellectualism based on exploitation”
I came back from 10yrs away working in Canada from 1988 to 1998, and suffered a large shock as most of my mates were either without jobs anymore or had a broken marriage.
National was in Power then remember?
It seemed that while away ‘rogernomics’ had gutted the country and closed most of the local regional HB/Gisborne businesses down.
Then when ‘John Fucking Key’ the slimeball came along he just totally dredged the place, to close down and steal anything he could finally sell.
I don’t have much respect anymore for politicians now, because they say what you want to hear.
When in Government they just don’t do much at all.
I just hope Jacinda doesn’t let us all down as they all have before.
“I just hope Jacinda doesn’t let us all down as they all have before.”
Unfortunately I have to say that I wouldn’t be holding my breath on that one.
The beating heart of any political movement when in power, is it’s economic ideology, everything else is dictated to by this one element, that is just a fact of political life in a democracy, and unfortunately for us the economic ideology of New Zealand Labour under Jacinda Ardern is by and large on of free market liberalism.
The link below is a very good read, although it doesn’t cover the Ardern govt, I don’t think anyone would argue that Ardern’s vision for NZ is to far removed from Helen Clarks….
New Zealand’s Neoliberal Drift
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/new-zealand-neoliberalism-inequality-welfare-state-tax-haven/
I’m not going to take issue with issues on the matters you’ve additionally raised. I have a different view on some and the same on some.
What I can’t abide, and I would have said the same if national had done it while in power, is the idea that government should set up additional public broadcasting at the behest of its supporters and advocates.
It’s like if the government founded Facebook then used it as a medium to spread its message. There is no independence. It would be a new Pravda, completely berefit if anything of anything of value to the electorate as a whole.
“Four lane ‘roads to no where’”
I’ve been on a couple of those roads recently.
One was from Paekakariki to Peka Peka. That is SH1 north of Wellington for your information.
Another was something called the Waikato Expressway.
They both seemed to be very good roads and certainly weren’t roads to “nowhere”.
On the other hand I have seen people claiming that building a new railway line from Napier to Gisborne would somehow be sensible. Now that really is an unneeded transport route to nowhere.
I suppose they might get a little train once a week.
You have NFI, how much freight goes between Napier and Gisborne.
I can assure you however, that it is a hell of a lot more than ” one small train a week”.
I have no doubt there is more than that.
However, unless you go back to the dark ages when we forced people to move their freight by rail if it was more than about 30 miles in the 30’s and 40 miles in the 1960’s I doubt if people will choose to put too much freight back on the railways.
I don’t think people will really want to go back to the multi handling required to get goods to the rail, shift them onto and then transport them by train and then transfer them back to trucks for delivery.
They got off rail as fast as they could when the restrictions were finally scrapped in 1983.
https://www.kiwirail.co.nz/about-us/history-of-kiwirail/150yearsofrail/stories/road-transport-regulation.html
By the way, when you purport to quote me by putting words within quotation marks, why don’t you do it accurately?
I didn’t say ” one small train a week”.
I said “a little train once a week.”
I quite agree there is not, in this case, a significant difference in meaning but it annoys me when quotes are not accurate. It also leads to people claiming X said Y ever afterward when it simply isn’t true.
It is also much easier to get the quote of course. If you are a slow typist like me a cut and paste is far faster than typing it out.
Point to point line haul is a thing?
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you are saying.
Is it to much to ask for an explanation?
Line haul depends on lighter vehicles to do first and last mile transporting in much the same way as rail once did.
An increase in last mile traffic would be a small price to pay to rid the roads of 60 tonne behemoths.
I suggest you head to the nearest Mainfreight terminal an observe how freight is handled.
port of gisborne exports tonnage exceeds aucklands and is growing till 2021 to nearly double aucklands.(around 5 million tons)
I’ll take your word for the 2021 projections.
However I see that in 2018 99.3% of the exports were logs.
http://gisborneherald.co.nz/localnews/3324691-135/record-year-for-port
I find it hard to believe that very much, if any,of that would have come from anywhere served by a Napier/Gisborne railway.
Where do you think the log depos are?
On the rail line of course.
Logs are already trucked from the forest to the railyards. Then dried before being trucked again. At present they are picked up again by trucks, because there is no rail line. There is no more handling by rail. Less in fact, at the port. Discharging individual trucks as they arrive at random, is a problem for ports. Playing havoc with labour and plant scheduling. Except for Lyttelton, who seem unable to get their shit together, trains can be scheduled to fit in with ships working.
Just like Northland. Which I can confirm because I had a job one year, counting all the cut timber between South Auckland and North Cape.
Currently logs are trucked from the old rail depos to Northport. With all the resulting problems and costs. Because some National party twat, cancelled the line to the port.
Most people seem to be unaware how long haul trucking works.
It is depo to depo, just like rail was.
Smaller trucks do the local delivery.
If trucks had to pay all their roading costs and externalities, almost all long haul would be ships or rail.
As it would have stayed, if trucks had to pay their full road costs right from the outset.
It doesn’t even take any longer, in most cases.
Every successful initiative has measurement at it’s core. If we don’t measure we don’t know where we’ve been, what we’ve got or how to expend energy to get to where we want to be.
Non measurement is the best way to disguise a window-dressing plan with little chance of success.
Is Whanau Ora working? Crap measurement….we haven’t got a clue.
Businesses that don’t measure quickly fail.
We measure alienation by measuring what it produces. Well being is measured by monitoring the components of what we consider to be living well. eg: Health – hospital admissions, Prozac sales. Education, income equity etc.
Everything can be measured and should be
Not sure about that – there are intangibles that don’t lend themselves to quantification.
It would be nice to have a joined up vision – but there’s plenty of firefighting to be done in the meantime. People with their feet to the fire want action more than they want a mission statement.
I hear you Stuart, but disagree. Intangibles are an amalgamation of tangibles.
eg: I love ice-cream. My love is an amalgamation of texture, flavour, temperature, packaging, price, availability. Because of the tangibles, I love some ice-cream more than others. My love can be measured.
Mission statements aren’t measuring, they’re a disguise for it. eg: ‘We want to build the best car in the world’.
Back when I was a quality assurance enthusiast, I’d’ve told you desirable intangibles are emergent properties of systems that successfully deal with negative facets. So not quite an amalgamation but a product of one if all the negatives are recognized.
Mission statements ought to be relatively important, but most enterprises in NZ don’t use quality as a competitive strategy, so they’re more of a lip service for certification purposes than the kind of thing you get from reading Imai.
“rebuild the national narrative”
Fortunately they have finally hired a competent political comms manager. Let’s see if they listen to him.
How many others have they been thru?
Whose that Sacha? I ha$ heard who it was
NZ Post just went down $101 million on an updated computer system I think. Now it is unlikely that they commissioned this in house. There are many ways that the government can’t guarantee that they will be able to do everything they envisage in a timely, efficient manner. If we did more through our public channels with reasonable criteria and measures. likely we would do better when aiming for a timely, workable, cost efficient model. And allow for some over-runs.
(Aside. A chap who has been living in China. married there, bought an apartment there. Knows about the place says that there are cracks appearing in the apartment walls. Places were thrown up to take advantage of the property boom – thrown up, and now settling down apparently – all over the place. Bit shonky.)
We are in lala land now where people set impossible unreasonable targets. Very little will ever turn out as envisaged and budgeted for. Let’s do the limbo, lower the target and effectiveness will go up.
Limbo! Can we bring house prices down so that our discretionary spending comes up?
That Civilian piece was comedy gold. The amount of hysterical shrieking going on over this is jaw-dropping. Watching National Party MPs ducking and diving over their vast portfolios had me grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Well… erm, I do have a few properties, but they’re mostly my wife’s. And some are in a trust so they’re not technically properties at all… they’re just… things in a trust. But the real issue here – the real issue, is hard-working mum and dad investors, blah, blah, drone, drone, squirm, squirm…”
And Simon “Attack on the Kiwi way of life!” Bridges is the gift that keeps on giving.
Question please…
Has tv3’s ‘The Nation’ been axed?
Parliament is back, Q+A is back…. but ‘The Nation’ isn’t.
Edit… just found out they are back on 3 March
Cinny.
National is back next week or so my wife tells me.
She said ‘Nation wanted some time to get the parliament dirt after they had been working for a week or so’; – it makes sense.
Thanks CG, looking forward to it 🙂
If there is to be no capital gains tax
Then there is to be no income gains tax
How can you have one without the other?
New Zealand – the land of ostriches
especially out there in farmerland
take a look … you can hear them …
though they sound like chickens…. bok bok bok
This prick.
“I’m on the local water usage group”
“We lease that land out to squash farmers … and they get spraying contractors in to move and set up the system”
No care, no responsibility. Big talker twice removed from his own land.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12205866
It’s a shame that more of the land is leasehold rather than freehold. Then proper use of water and tratment of the soil could be enforced. And being twice removed from his land would have a different meaning. Three strikes and you’re out would too.
That sounds weird. I mean it would be better if most of the land was leasehold rather than freehold. Government lease, Maori lease, with a limit on renewable periods. Otherwise, with renewals of long leases, it can be a virtual alienation of the land.
I see a 40 year Mp veteran has left the uk Labour Party ( now 9) Scathing of Jezzers, not fit to lead, anti Semitic and extremist I don’t think the coming of Jezzer and uk Labour is likely any time soon
there have been a lot of Corbyn fans on here who have been overlooking the anti Semitic nature of the Labour Party and momentum movement for a long time.
They are enablers.
Lucky Corbyn is the best thing for the Tories since forever.
James I think you mean lucky Simon is the best thing for labour since sliced bread.
If 6ou believe Jeremy Corbin’s anti-Semitic, you’ll believe anything.
It might be hard for tories to realize that Jeremy Corbin is all about decency and that would extend to everyone……
Yea, it’s just Israel propaganda that the Torries have decided to run with.
+1, “If you believe Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitic, you’ll believe anything.
You hit the nail on the head right there… I wouldn’t bother with these Corbyn/anti semitic morons if I were you, they are beyond reasoning with.
Just as anti-semitism and criticism of Israel are two different things, believing Corbyn specifically is anti-semitic and believing that anti-semitism seems to be tolerated by the Labour hierarchy are two different things.
VOR McFlock
Voice of Reason. Israel government should listen to you. They are sort of throwing dildos in the world’s faces, saying hah we can do anything wish. Because we have been so badly treated. we will never have to say we are sorry for anything. There have been horrible happenings elsewhere though.
The Israeli govt is what it is, and I strongly suspect the current regime plans to eliminate the ghettos in the next 50 years.
But their claims of antisemitism to deflect from their fascism are essentially background radiation in this. The tory bleating is a bigger source. But a few of those clicks on the geiger counter seem to come from UK Labour, from what I’ve read.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47330079
Is it anti Semitism or anti Zionism?
If it is the former, then that is shameful beyond words.
If it is the latter, then my interpretation is they are anti the Israeli government which comes under the auspices of politics. Everyone is entitled to have their political views no matter how repugnant some of them may be.
So, which is it James? To ‘mix’ the two together in order to smear a political party – and I suspect that is what is happening to the UK Labour Party – is dishonest to the point of disgusting given the subject matter.
For the record, I have met and befriended many Jewish people over the years. I never met one I didn’t like and whose company I didn’t enjoy. On the other hand, I think the current Israeli government has become a hard-line, war-mongering nation that practices excessive brutality. I have been told that many of its inhabitants think like-wise.
Edit: I’m not doubting there is some anti-Semitism in UK Labour but that, imo, would be the case in any political party. Anti-Semitism is an irrational and emotional response to generations of bigotry and prejudice and exists everywhere.
Newsflash James.
Palestinians are Semites.
How can objecting to them being bombed, shot and imprisoned be “anti Semitic?
And most Jewish peoples are not Semitic, they are Jewish by conversion not genetically, I wouldn’t see Corbyn as being discriminating to Jewish people but supporting of Palestinian aspirations. Some see that as anti semitic.
Probably the most anti semitic statement ever written on this site.
The mental contortions you must go through to justify your anti-semitism?
Labour insiders leave labour over anti-semitism, but according to corbyn’s supporters it doesn’t exist as the new independents are blairites? go figure
Who are ‘semites’, in your option, TS ?
Or did you just feel like dropping one in the elevator…
I don’t want to get into this discussion re whether Corbyn is anti-Semitic or anti-Zionism – or IMHO more probably anti the current Israeli government – as it is a very complex situation; but I really was more than astounded (to put it mildly) at your statement that:
‘ And most Jewish peoples are not Semitic, they are Jewish by conversion not genetically”
This is an enormous subject which has attracted and continues to attract many differing opinions and theories; and a considerable number of genetic studies including DNA testing of many of the different groupings of Jews. Results have been variable depending on these groups.
Some DNA studies of Ashkenazi Jews (those who dispersed through the Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe and then spread into Eastern Europe for example) have suggested that they may have little genetic relationship to their original Middle Eastern ancestors and that their genes seem more related to early European women in particular. However, these results are disputed by some and also contrast with the results of DNA testing of other groups of Jews such as Sephardic Jews who descend from Jews who settled in the Iberian Peninsula, and Mizrahi Jews, who descend from Jews who remained in the Middle East.
While Ashkenazi Jews make up the majority of Jews throughout the world (eg roughly estimated at about 70-75%), even if the DNA studies of Ashkenazi Jews are accepted this does not necessarily equate to proof that they are Jewish by conversion.
Conversion to Judaism is in itself a complex subject ranging from the very strict rules relating to matriarchal lineage of the ultra orthodox Jewish movement through the slightly less restrictive modern Orthodox; through the next main group of Conservative movements formed as a halfway house between Orthodox and Reform theology and practices; then the much liberal, progressive Reform groups; and to the much more recent groups formed in mainly Anglophone countries including Reconstructive Judaism which emphasizes modernism and gender equality etc.
I really don’t want to get into a further discussion on this – or to divert from the main discussion on Corbyn etc – but merely wanted to provide the above as a caution against using or accepting such general statements as if they are fact.
PS – I have now seen Tuppence Shrewsbury’s comment. While I won’t go as far as that, this is the third time in as many months that I have read very generalised statement re Jews here on TS. I responded to the first ( re whether Jewish people are often quoted as aspiring to their children become doctors, or now lawyers). but ignored the second despite the fact that it was a very ignorant and confused statement based on – wait for it – an article in TeenVogue magazine. Sorry. but not letting this one past without comment.
(Please note the other two comments were by another commenter – not Psych Nurse).
Interesting ‘rant’. Anti-Semitism is of course a real thing, and has some very deep roots in European history. The genetic aspect is also interesting as well, and has some very real outcomes.
Clearly the Jewish people constitute a very complex community and treating them all as one ‘identity’ group is a fail for a start. The story of Israel as a nation is also central to the Western narrative. Many, many complex threads and themes.
I don’t want to get into this discussion re whether Corbyn is anti-Semitic or anti-Zionism
There is no discussion to be had. There is no evidence that he is anti-Semitic.
Just read an article on fb book about the anti Semitic claims, that show the facts of the complaints of anti-semitism. None against Jeremy Corbin, complaints rigorously investigated, most not upheld, those that were got expulsion.
Amazing how the right and the msm will try and spin a narrative
Pish and tosh.
Corbyn is no more anti-Semitic than Twyford is anti Chinese or the Gnats are anti corruption.
100% correct Stuart.
James have you ever watched an investigation called “The Lobby”? it’s from 2017
Al Jazeera Investigations exposes how the Israel lobby influences British politics. A six-month undercover investigation reveals how Israel penetrates different levels of British democracy.
Anti-Zionism is deliberately conflated with anti-Semitism to suppress legitimate criticisms of Israeli policies.
Episode Three: In part three, our undercover reporter witnesses a heated conversation between two opposing activists. The evidence raises serious questions about whether accusations of anti-Semitism are used to stifle political debate.
https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/thelobby/
There are also follow up episodes covering events which have happened since their investigation screened.
Highly recommended viewing.
Yes the conflation of anti-Semitism with anything critical of the state of Israel is a tactic that has been around for a few decades now.
It’s a very common technique to discredit your opponents that we see used a lot these days; taking usually selective misquotes from a source and then deliberately attaching them to a different, darker agenda that you can then attack freely.
It goes beyond the mere strawman, into something more corrosive and perverse.
Agreed – but I will throw another spanner in the works.
That is, IMO opinion “anti-Semitism” should never be conflated with “anti-Zionism”. BUT nor should either of those terms be conflated with being anti the current Israeli government and its policies/practices.
Zionism used to have and should still have a very different meaning, aspiration to what now existing in terms of the current Israeli state/government and its policies/practices.
Sorry, will just leave it at that as need to go out and I have already done a long rant at 6.1.3.1.2 above today about a generalised statement made above re Jews and Judaism.
This’ll be a controversial comment. For years after WW2 many Europeans and non-Europeans alike used the terms Nazi and German synonymously. This was caused by their direct and indirect experiences and the compelling war (and post-war!) propaganda machines. It has taken 2-3 generations to disentangle these terms and the German people and governments have worked hard to help this along. The Wall came down and the unification is still a work in progress but perceptions have slowly changed over time.
You couldn’t even comment on the colour of Netanyahu’s shoelaces without being labelled anti Semitic.
Israel is not beyond criticism and hiding behind the antisemetuc slur at every opportunity does them no favours.
If the criticisms about UKLabour were restricted to that level, I’d agree.
Most of the criticism against Corbyn personally seems to be a beat-up, a politician associating with folk just because politicians associate with lots of folk and some of them might have unsavoury aspects.
But some of the issues in the wider party seem to be a bit more serious than that.
International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), an industry loyal NGO, and thus have a serious conflict of interest
Abstract
In May 2011 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) evaluated cancer risks from radio frequency (RF) radiation. Human epidemiological studies gave evidence of increased risk for glioma and acoustic neuroma. RF radiation was classified as Group 2B, a possible human carcinogen. Further epidemiological, animal and mechanistic studies have strengthened the association.
In spite of this, in most countries little or nothing has been done to reduce exposure and educate people on health hazards from RF radiation.
On the contrary ambient levels have increased.
In 2014 the WHO launched a draft of a Monograph on RF fields and health for public comments.
It turned out that five of the six members of the Core Group in charge of the draft are affiliated with International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), an industry loyal NGO, and thus have a serious conflict of interest.
Just as by ICNIRP, evaluation of non-thermal biological effects from RF radiation are dismissed as scientific evidence of adverse health effects in the Monograph. This has provoked many comments sent to the WHO.
However, at a meeting on March 3, 2017 at the WHO Geneva office it was stated that the WHO has no intention to change the Core Group.
One Two,
WHO has made the right choice; – and inserted “The precautionary Principal” into its
RF radiation adverse health effects in the Monograph.
https://www.who.int/peh-emf/meetings/southkorea/Leeka_Kheifets_principle_.pdf
THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AND EMF
Dr Leeka I Kheifets
World Health Organization
Tel: +41 22 791 49 76, Fax: +41 22 791 41 23, Email: kheifetsl@who.int
Our bodies are naturally tuned between a low frequency between 308 – to 504 Hz, and were not capable of sustaining high frequencies as we now.
We must use the ‘Precautionary Principal’ just as Government uses it’ all the time when they impose more ‘compliance’ rules upon us all every day.
Find a farmer, they speak for all farmers,any farmer. Ask them to conflate benefits and a CGT. Speak to emotion, that they are just jealous of farmers, farmers work hard for every cent. Now you have your classic turd blossom. Hard too attack since where to start, the fact that less than 5% of the poorest people have a overwhelmingly say in the present govt, or that farmers in NZ compete against Australian farmers who do pay CUT. So what hard work,the hard work making up turd blossoms to keep that artificial govt subsidy of not pay CGT that competitors do. Oh, and you’ve ever wonder why subsides are bad, they hand people more income than the market actually was goibg to, that makes it easier to take more risks as farmers have more money, and so drives up a risk premium. Yes, NZ farmers laziness makes Australian bankers richer. A dairy farmer,say, competing with a Ozzie diary farmer can take a bigger risk in expanding their dairy. So let’s call the farmers out, their subsidy just makes them more reckless and the Aussie banks soakup the benefits. There should be a reason for every legislative difference between oz and nz or they should be removed. why don’t we have a CGT. Not why should me lifestyle be subsidized so that I can make profits selling homes to each other, and padding bankers with fees.
Foriegn farmer, business owner comes to NZ to find out why he gets beat by kiwi hard work, turns out his jealousy at our lack of CAT is miss placed, it should be pity, that we incentivized taking, expand put non productive sectors, and breed farmers who think its just the poorest jealous of their subsidized success.Bet the free press aren’t going to characterize farmers as beggars desperate for a free ride from the tax payers. What no farm subsidies in NZ, no CUT is a farm, real estate, risk premium nightmare. why are the neolibs backing a zero rate CGT, its not good economics.
soddenleaf
Rant right! I might agree if I could find an end to paragraph and capture the whole idea illustrated there. Sometimes it just comes pouring out sure. Why not take a minute and press enter at appropriate full stops. Don’t chuck the whole brick, get a better result from a number of smaller ones from different dangkles. (That’s a typo but I thunk it lookds good so I’ll leave it for decoration.)
It is so important Labour is re-elected in 2020.
A one term Labour Gov’t would see all the fairness go out the window.
While this would mean the the over due evolution of a new party
in the mean time National would dominate for another decade.
So Labour needs to win while also evolving into a new party.
A tough ask but essential.
2020 is a defining year for Labour and all who rely on her
You have a big problem when you personally rely on or look for your salvation on any government, I suggest it is not a goal for any one to aim for
Tell that to the daughter of a NZ cancer patient who recently wrote an open letter to the PM pleading for more public money to be allocated to funding new cancer treatments.
Would an effective CGT, of the type most other developed countries have, be one way of publically funding these new treatments?
Or we could just flog off the other half of our electricity providers to private interests – but only once.
Are these new cancer treatments curative or just lengthening time left. What do you think would be a fair approach to our health system and the afflicted person? Have an understanding that we will try to give the patient at least six month perhaps a year of low pain and good mobility time with family, and time to carry out some of the dreams that were in mind for later?
How does that sound? The new drugs are very expensive and i hear demands for them to be rolled out so the diseased person can constantly put off dying at great expense to the country. Being fair should work both ways.
The new drugs are very expensive
Lotsa money to be made from cancer. Drug manufacturers holding the world to ransom. Sucks.
CGT funding more R&D would be fantastic, however there are some powerful players in the game of curing fatal diseases.
Wondering why the nats are all over the cannabis debate, but super quiet re euthanasia?
There do appear to be some instances of the new treatments being genuinely curative. Jimmy Carter is probably the highest profile example of Keytruda apparently helping to completely eradicate the metastasised melanoma he had in his brain and liver.
But those instances of complete cure are still very rare and it’s still mostly very expensive life extension for a few months or at best a few years.
To answer your question probably not, most of it lost in administration, poor government spending and dead weight loss to the economy in increase in unproductive services like lawyers, valuers and accountants. Simiilsrky whst will impact of CGT on productive sector, less growth, investment, entrepreneurship, less jobs meaning less jobs and income tax / gst This is before even mentioning forecasting level of taxed raise is highly dubious, Not even Warren Buffet can tell you where asset values are heading so would not trust those clowns in government or wonks in treasury As it is it could be negative tax if assets start falling and people can offsetting capital losses against thier income CGT is not a magic bullet with many possible unintended consequences
Bewildered, thanks for your considered, honest assessment.
It seems that things haven’t been too rosy in the public health sector of late, what with concerns about deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate funding for new drugs, not to mention over-worked nurses and (junior) doctors striking for better conditions.
IF you accept that NZ’s universal publicly-funded health system should not be allowed to deteriorate for lack of funding, then how best to secure the funding necessary to adequately support the professional efforts of public sector health workers?
If increased taxation is an idealogical no-no, then how else might the Government go about it? Assuming that you think a universal publicly-funded health system is a good idea.
Its important to understand how public funding works. At any time the government can afford to purchase anything for sale in $NZ, that is all there is to it. Any further discussion is about the impacts of the governments taxation and spending decisions on the economy which are difficult to predict (and the budget forecast is frequently quite far off on many key variables within months of being issued).
To put it simplistically (but correctly) the govt can today afford to fund these treatments and chooses not to do so.
Yes Rata, and when you get told by Bewildered not to rely on any Government, when he/she is so obviously a Tory LOL LOL. Comments from that person have always dissed the Coalition and lauded National.
We definitely need a Labour led Government for 3 electoral terms to establish a fairer system.
Good News!
Another step in freeing Julian Assange,
Authorities confirm Assange’s Australian passport was renewed last October.
“The implication is that DFAT’s decision to renew the passport several months later was based on an assessment that Julian Assange is “not the subject of an arrest warrant in connection with a ‘serious foreign offence.’”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/22/pass-f22.html
Julian Assange was a great help in inserting a wedge in the cogs of the powers’ people-wheel. They resented that and had to find something to darken his wan cheeks. Luckily they found something sexual. Otherwise they might have had to resort to announcing that he couldn’t pee straight.
He definitely deserves our consideration, kindly that is, forgiving if necessary.
That linked article sums up this nasty episode very thoroughly Adrian.
This story has been thrashed over many times here in the past and I’ve no wish to re-open them, but hell the longer this goes on the more absurd it becomes.
Yes it is all very Kafka at this point, strangely it reminds me a lot of the many critiques that made their way out, from within the Stalinist regime during it’s ascendancy.
So why doesn’t he walk out of the embassy?
If you were in his position would you?
There are apparently no warrants, just a pissy little jumping bail charge. Six months, a year at the outside, he’s done with the entire issue. Probably with greater freedom of movement than he currently has. Or are the brits now going to rendition him to the USA? Because didn’t he flee to the UK to avoid that eventuality?
So I ask again, would you walk out of that embassy if you where in his position?
I wouldn’t have walked in in the first place.
In fact, I wouldn’t have had cause to leave Sweden.
And. You would be sitting in solitary confinement in the USA.
Pour encourager les autres
So he left Sweden and went to the UK to avoid rendition, but now apparently Sweden no longer wants him so he stays in the embassy to avoid rendition from the country he fled to in order to avoid rendition.
Bit weird.
The situation Assange is in now, not to mention how he got there, may indeed seem a ‘bit weird’.
Despite Trump’s campaign assertion “I love Wikileaks“, if I was in Assange’s shoes right now I’d have to think really carefully about simply walking out of the embassy. Honest!
Sessions is no longer attorney general, but the U.S. administration-led crusade to prosecute Assange has been going on for many years – it’s more than just personal.
How does that differ from when he was asked to attend a second interview about sexual assault allegations?
The yanks want him in a yank jail. If he fled Sweden and jumped bail in the UK because he thought the Swedes would send him to the US if he were extradited to Sweden, didn’t this fear evaporate when the Swedes withdrew their EAW? He walks out of the embassy, does a month or two for bail-jumping, and leaves it all behind him.
Suspect Assange would like to have your confidence and certainty, but being a shut-in for 6+ years…
Fortunately there are no consequences if we guess wrong.
Thing is, I reckon there’s a really good chance that he only fled to the safety of the USA’s closest ally in order to avoid plain old sexual assault allegations. If it was a genuine concern, he would have copied Snowden.
Maybe he believes his own bullshit now. That’s probably poetic justice.
You could be right that “there’s a really good chance” etc., but Assange fled a bit further than to the USA’s closest ally.
I get that you would take the gamble, but your suggestion that Assange is (now) too self-deluded to correctly evaluate the risk to his future life and liberty seems a bit of a low blow.
Whatever happens, his name and achievements will outlast most – maybe that’s some consolation.
The dude’s been staring at the same four walls for a while now. That can do bad things.
If I didn’t know it was a gilded cage he selected for himself, probably to avoid accountability for actions in his personal life, I’d be inclined to sympathy.
“A gilded cage” – we should all be so ‘lucky’! If “bad things” have been ‘done’, maybe that’s punishment enough.
If “the dude’s” free to walk, what accountability is he avoding?
As for his achievements, Wikileaks and encouraging the use of protected leaking was a tremendous good. Doxing female Turkish voters was a bad thing.
But people and groups can be more than one thing, and complicated. And sometimes the drive and self-image that enables the good also enables the bad (Churchill also comes to mind with that).
I didn’t ask you any of those questions, nor am I interested in your opinion on those matters, so now about you just answer the simple question that I proposed to you three questions ago please.
Would you walk out of the embassy today if you where in his position?
Yes.
Why wouldn’t I? There are no warrants out for me…
Well I will send you a care package c/- Guantanamo bay, obviously you have plenty of trust in the American justice system it would seem, I know I don’t….might see you in about 10-15 years if you’re lucky.
“The visit came a day before Assange received bad news from the US, where a federal judge refused to force the Justice Department to admit the existence of what are believed to be criminal charges laid against him in secret.”
“The existence of the charge has long been rumoured and was all but confirmed by a mix-up in a Virginia court last year, when an otherwise unremarkable document filed by a government lawyer referred, out of context, to “the fact that Assange has been charged”.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/australian-diplomats-visit-assange-told-of-deteriorating-health-20190201-p50uyq.html
So as soon as he step out of the embassy, he will be renditioned by the yanks? From downtown London? And if they have a formal criminal investigation, why would they send him to Guantanamo, which is for people without an actual criminal or POW status (which is why thay’re using non-US soil)?
Walk me through the process here. How does he get from the front door of the Ecuadoeran Embassy in London all the way to Guantanamo?
lol crickets
“Walk me through the process here. How does he get from the front door of the Ecuadoeran Embassy in London all the way to Guantanamo?”
Obviously I was using Guantanamo as analogy of the US’s complete lack of interest adhering to any international law if it does not suit them.
I was just assuming that you would understand that this lack of regard for the rule of law that could so easily be applied to someone like Assange that has been so openly threatened by so many powerful people in powerful positions in the US would make you a little more circumspect about walking out that door, I know wouldn’t walk out that door, Assange wisely does not, no it is only you who seem to think that the Yanks are just a bunch of forgive and forget kind of guys..you know let bygones be bygones…Yeh right.
Nice dodge. Show us exactly what you are afraid of:
He goes out to the front step of the embassy, and then…
It appears that ‘last word-McFlock’ (just a bit of fun) has reopened this case – not sure that was necessary, but I’ll bite.
Here’s a remote, but (IMO) not inconceivable sequence of events – note that since I have no legal training it should be fairly easy to shoot down.
1. Assange steps outside the embassy, is arrested by MET police (tipped off by an Ecuadorian embassy ‘friendly’ on retainer) and detained. [“The Metropolitan police have previously said he would face immediate arrest if he left the embassy, for breaching the terms of his bail conditions when he sought asylum.“]
2. The US asks its “closest ally” (your words) to facilitate extradition of Assange to the US, where he is incarcerated pending trial. It’s unlikely that Assange would be granted bail while awaiting trial, since he had previously skipped bail, or failed to appear in court, or whatever.
3. If normal U.S. legal conventions (Law & Order) are followed, then it might take several appeals before Assange eventually winds up in Guantanamo or some other ‘correctional’ facility.
Don’t know whether you auto-dismiss Guardian articles; this link is just evidence that a little over 3 months ago senior news writer Esther Addley was thinking along similar lines, at least for the for the first few ‘steps’.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/nov/16/julian-assange-wikileaks-have-criminal-charges-been-prepared-us
State authorities can occassionally be quite vindictive when it comes to making public examples of those who have inconvenienced ‘the state’, and revealing secret machinations is an inconvenience.
rephrasing an unasnwered question within a couple of hours is hardly “reopening”, but whatevs.
1: yes, because he jumped bail.
2: if the yanks request extradition, Assange is well-versed in delaying proceedings. And of course US proceedings against him will have to be formally and openly at a level where he would have been charged under UK law. And I suspect the reasons for extradition would be highly challengable under UK law, anyway.
3: If he is extradited to the US, he will be delivered to US soil, so he will have constitutional safeguards (which is why they used a base on Cuban soil in the first place).
And he only faces this issue because he jumped bail in the first place. Otherwise the yanks would have asked for him when he was walking around London.
If I were Assange, would I accept an invitation to do a speaking tour of the US? Shit, no. Would I plea bargain with the CPS for maybe a couple of months jail or a fine for bail-jumping? Rather than spend another X years in the embassy, yup, I’d definitely see what they had to offer.
McFlock, regarding ‘reopening‘, I was refering to your 3:16 pm 25 Feb. “crickets lol” comment (taunt?), posted some 40 hours after your 10:56 pm 23 Feb. comment, which might have been the last word in your back-and-forth with AT, but for ‘crickets lol’.
Since you already had the last word (10:56 pm 23 Feb), I interpreted (perhaps misinterpreted) your “crickets lol” comment, some 40 hour later, as a taunt to the effect that no-one had rebutted your ‘last words’.
I support your right to assert that if you were in Assange’s shoes you would walk out of the Ecuadorian embassy. We’re all individuals.
I’d asked a genuine question, and got a non-answer. So I asked it again, and gave Adrian enough time to give a geniuine answer. So upon receiving none, I highlighted that fact.
Your scenario includes extradition to Guantanamo. That’s not why Guantanamo or indictments exist. To get to Guantanamo, he’d have to be kidnapped off the streets of London. Chain of custody records being what they are, he’d actually be safer in a British jail than walking around, if G was a genuine likelihood. And he’s pretty safe in the streets of London, because he’s famous. It would be difficult to anonymously kidnap him and then get him out of the country.
But G’s not in the picture for Assnge, because apparently the yanks are trying to run him through their legal process. That means public trials in the courts and appeals in the UK, then public trials and appeals in the USA. He’s rich and white, he’s got a better chance than most, even if they try to extradite him. And espionage against the US is much less a universal charge than sexual assault.
The 40-hour separation between your consecutive replies to AT had me wondering why, so thanks for the explanation/justification, and kudos for “highlighting that fact“.
Agree that Gitmo seems a very unlikely final destination, but mental health facilities have been beefed up.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article213231219.html
Just for info., from The Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent Owen Bowcott (23 Jan 2019):
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/23/julian-assange-launches-legal-challenge-against-trump-administration-extradition
“WikiLeaks founder’s lawyers file urgent application in attempt to prevent extradition to US“
I was busy Sunday 🙂
Interesting article. I doubt they’ll get anywhere though – they seem to be under the impression that the current US regime gives two fucks about pretending to give two fucks about international legal bodies. It’s difficult to get worse in that regard than some previous administrations, but this lot manage it.
So why doesn’t he walk out of the embassy?
??????????!!!!?!?!?!?!!!?!?!?
https://i0.wp.com/bobcesca.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/cant-tell-if-serious.jpg
This country (NZ) cannot go on having more people coming into use our infrastructure.
We have such a ‘small tax base’ – so get used of more taxes; – until we have all our infrastructure system around NZ upgraded to a 21st century model, so we can cope to take more people.
Is that from an Ardern speech?
nah, it’s from John Key and Bill English when they raised the GST to 15% to make up for the Tax Cuts for the haves.
It would probably be rather nice to have a 21st Century infrastructure in New Zealand.
The problem is that our current Government seems to want to spend the money on early 20th century cycle tracks. 19th century railways and even earlier provisions for horses. What is it that makes Tsar Winston want to provide tax deductions for people who buy “pretty racehorses”?
Yes. Railways need upgrading to the 21st century. Electrification for a start.
As for those gas guzzling, expensive mid 20th century trucks, and their insatiable demand for more and better roads.
Time they were kicked to touch and replaced by rail, shipping, and electric or hydrogen powered, short haul.
FTOTM describes the Key administration, for those who forget:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/22/remember-being-shocked-by-tony-abbott-it-seems-like-a-picnic-now?fbclid=IwAR2ieNjKUok_Jefoe8N-7_FjT9vGOYmOgdQhD598zwInRKZb0YfO4S6WAY4
FDOTM
first dog on the moon – cartoon gives a succinct view of doings on the earth (the turd- like things that people do and leave etc.)
FuckTard Of The Month?
Oh boy, this is brutal and after reading it I need a shower. But I doubt hot water and soap will cut it.
(seriously, a grim, nauseating read so careful )
https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/kompromat-or-revelations-from-the-unpublished-portions-of-andrea-manaforts-hacked-texts/
Agreed – warning to anyone reading it. You need to – but be prepared to be shocked even if you think you are shockproof.
Oops – should read “You need to be prepared …”
yes the best thing for the animals was to kill them, the poor bastards.
“Wellington Zoo has euthanised four male baboons after their social structure broke down.
Habib,14, Osiris, 7, Les,17, and Rafiki,15, were all born at Wellington Zoo. They were put down on Saturday.
They were the only baboons at the zoo, which has housed baboons since 1967…
…Wellington Zoo animal welfare committee member Dr Ngaio Beausoleil said it was a tough decision – but the humane one.
“It is Wellington Zoo’s responsibility to have the knowledge and experience to do what is best for the animals in their care.””
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/110816348/wellington-zoo-euthanises-four-male-baboons
Ban zoos.
Are you aware of the role some zoos play in the recovery of species about to go extinct?
For instance, the San Diego Zoo played a big part in saving the California Condor from going extinct, and their Center for the Recovery of Endangered Species is currently active in many programs on their sites and out in the field. Auckland Zoo is active with the kakapo effort, native frogs, bats and insects, plus undoubtedly a whole lot more I’m not aware of.
Even when zoos don’t have direct endangered species programs, they will often participate in worldwide breeding programs to maintain biodiversity. This is especially important for species that only have remnant populations in the wild.
Yes, without zoos these programs might continue. But zoos are a good way to put together large and diverse teams of specialist professionals that really do work well together for these species recovery programs. As well as being effective places to publicise how badly fucked up our natural world is getting.
that might be true, but essentially only because us humans are so prolific at killing of wilderness everywhere to the point where wildlife now needs to live in a Zoo in order to save the species.
what i would like to know is why 4 baboons had to be killed. Socials structure break down, would that be the natural happening of a younger male maybe challenging and defeating an older male? and the response to that would be ‘kill them all and let god sort them’?
So yeah, it would be nice why these four apes had to be destroyed in order to save the zoo or whatever.
Yeah, I’m fkn furious we humans have so badly fucked up the world we live in that those sorts of measures are needed. But compared to the emotional investment the people directly involved in species recovery put into their work – well – my anger seems like a token gesture. As much as we’d like it to be different, that’s the world we’ve made and live in and have to try to do our best with.
essentially zoo’s should be shut down, one after the other. If we can’t have the species survive in the wilderness that we have not yet killed off then they don’t need to survive in a zoo just so that we have something to gawk on on days were we need entertainment.
My reply to marty at 15.1.2.1 is almost exactly what I’d reply to you here.
The spokesperson said that others had already died, and a dynamic had been set up so that their behaviour was set on destructive and they expected that if left to work itself out, they would continue to attack, injure and kill each other.
Sure, good on them. To me zoos are a disconnect from nature. I also have a dubious moral objection in that I believe in the intrinsic value of living entities in and of themselves, just for existing, and I feel zoos lower that value by objectifying the creatures no matter how many extra years they live. But the dubious bit is that my caring is also as exploitative as the zoos, just more speciesism.
I also think it’s the way it goes that species go extinct. It’s more human hubris imo to try and stop them all because we can hardly stop any and why anyway? Cos we like them? Cos they were pretty? Cos the ecosystem will suffer? It’s all a bit silly really.
I’ve visited areas that have been re-wilded, and been privileged to see California Condors living back in the wild. Those experiences are some of the very few things that give me hope we can salvage something good from the disaster coming at us.
That zoos might be refuges and reservoirs for re-establishing a natural world sometime in the future goes some way towards mitigating what’s wrong with them now. Further, most zoos have an honest commitment to continuously improving animal welfare. If they didn’t, I’d be a lot less willing to argue that they have redeeming features.
Wow, when I said much the same thing about species becoming extinct a few days ago I was jumped on with hobnailed boots.
I am pleased to see I am not the only person contributing to this site who doesn’t think that the current lot of species on earth at this date must never be allowed to change.
Alwyn, when you write in favour of allowing (some of) “the current lot of species on earth at this date” to ‘change’ [i.e. ‘go’ extinct], does that include Homo sapiens?
They couldn’t send them off to other zoos then. Convenient that the humane option was the cheap one.
Zoos trade and relocate animals all the time. Sucks to be a not-particularly-rare socially-maladjusted primate in a zoo on the arse-end of the planet.
Yes I confirm that McFlock.
i hope that this will become an olympic sport soon
https://www.masslive.com/expo/sports/g66l-2019/02/05d54e27793094/lightsaber-dueling-becomes-a-real-sport-french-fencing-group-approve-star-warsstyle-swordplay.html
https://twitter.com/AP_Sports/status/1097514827830968321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1097514827830968321&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.masslive.com%2Fexpo%2Fsports%2Fg66l-2019%2F02%2F05d54e27793094%2Flightsaber-dueling-becomes-a-real-sport-french-fencing-group-approve-star-warsstyle-swordplay.html
I fucking hate pitbulls.
?
Not sure if anyone has seen this article on the stuff.co.nz website? About EQC and the National Disaster Fund. Since 1988 the NDF was seen as a great big honey pot by the pollies and treated it as an IOU and that’s before we even start taking about “No Mates Party” who stopped paying into EQC in the 1990’s. To make matters even worst both EQC and the NDF while managed by the muppets at Treasury until recently.
From my POV, It’s probably no wonder why there is a lot a talk of a CGT being introduced into NZ when the Neo Con/Lib vandals of both major parties since 1988 had their hand in the honey pot. Trying to rebuild the funds up a hurry before the next major natural disaster or CC related event without cutting all the Government Depts like the last bunch of muppets did, so they could get their so surplus and instead of trying to rebuild/ increase fund the NDF and EQC.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/110674808/plunder-how-the-bill-for-the-canterbury-earthquakes-was-passed-on
Not too much different from ACC, accumulating money to fatten it up for sale, and make the Government accounts look better, rather than paying out to claimants.
We will see a lot more of this come to light as the Neo-liberal civil service, is slowly purged of ACTiods.
When you read this story why don’t you also look at what the New Zealand First Party want to do with the Cullen Fund.
They want the Government to spend the money on their own personal infrastructure projects.
““New Zealand First would encourage the fund’s managers to invest in infrastructure in New Zealand so it works for New Zealand’s long term interests,” says Mr Peters.”
You can ignore most of the rest of the story. That is just Winnie’s usual b*s.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1709/S00281/cullen-fund-performs-but-national-taxes-it.htm
They aren’t the only ones of course. In fact I think only ACT has resisted the temptation.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/103750310/nz-super-fund-keen-to-build-and-operate-aucklands-light-rail?rm=m
When you see the word “unsolicited” you should of course take it with a very large dose of salt.
Just what do you think is going to happen when the money is needed from about 2040 or so and it has all gone into politicians stupid hobby horses?
The best thing to do with the Cullen Fund of course is to pay it back to individual taxpayers and encourage them to put it into their personal Super Funds.
Then the taxpayer can provide the General Super from taxes as they do now. That is what is going to have to happen anyway once the bloody politicians have squandered away the Cullen Fund..
NZSuperFund and ACC already spend tonnes on NZ infrastructure projects.
Peters should just take another sip and relax into his political easychair.
I agree. Super should be PAYGO, from taxes, as should Government investment.
Privatising super has worked just as well as all the other privatisation. Putting money into private super schemes, is unlikely to survive the next GFC.
Another reason why we all invest in houses.
Better to invest more taxes in public works, education and development, which will increase the wealth available in future,
However the level of infrastructure, services, health and housing investment required, either needs more taxes, or more borrowing.
I favour more taxes, or QE, tempered by taxation, as borrowing means we all pay more in the long run. It just makes banks rich.
Non-thermal effects: Wifi Frequencies
Citations:
Cellular DNA damage
Glaser (1971); Yakymenko et al. (1999); Aitken and De Iuliis (2007); Hardell and Sage (2008); Hazout et al. (2008); Phillips et al. (2009); Ruediger (2009); Makker et al. (2009); Yakymenko and Sidorik (2010); Batista Napotnik et al. (2010); Yakymenko et al. (2011); Pall, 2013, Pall, 2015b; Asghari et al. (2016); Pall (2018)
Changes in testis structure, lowered sperm count/quality:
Glaser (1971); Tolgskaya and Gordon (1973); Aitken and De Iuliis (2007); Hazout et al. (2008); Desai et al. (2009); Gye and Park (2012); Nazıroğlu et al. (2013); Carpenter (2013); Adams et al. (2014); Liu et al. (2014); Houston et al. (2016); La Vignera et al. (2012); Makker et al. (2009)
Neurological/neuropsychiatric effects
Glaser (1971); Tolgskaya and Gordon (1973); Raines (1981); Lai (1994); Grigor’ev (1996); Hardell and Sage (2008); Makker et al. (2009); Khurana et al. (2010); Levitt and Lai (2010); Consales et al. (2012); Carpenter (2013); Pall (2016b); Belyaev et al. (2016); Kaplan et al., 2016, Sangün et al., 2016
Apoptosis/cell death
Glaser (1971); Tolgskaya and Gordon (1973); Raines (1981); Yakymenko et al. (1999); Batista Napotnik et al. (2010); Yakymenko and Sidorik (2010); Pall, 2013, Pall, 2016b; Asghari et al. (2016); Sangün et al. (2016)
Calcium overload
Adey, 1981, Adey, 1988; Walleczek (1992); Yakymenko et al. (1999); Gye and Park (2012); Pall, 2013, Pall, 2015a, Pall, 2015b, Pall, 2016a, Pall, 2016b); Asghari et al. (2016)
Endocrine effects
Glaser (1971); Tolgskaya and Gordon (1973); Raines (1981); Hardell and Sage (2008); Gye and Park (2012); Hardell and Sage (2008); Makker et al. (2009); Pall (2015b); Sangün et al. (2016); Asghari et al. (2016)
Oxidative stress, free radical damage
Raines (1981); Houston et al. (2016); Hardell and Sage (2008); Hazout et al. (2008); Desai et al. (2009); Yakymenko and Sidorik (2010); Yakymenko et al. (2011); Consales et al. (2012); La Vignera et al. (2012); Nazıroğlu et al. (2013); Yakymenko et al. (2015); Pall, 2013, Pall, 2018; Dasdag and Akdag (2016); Wang and Zhang (2017)
Nothing a tin foil hat won’t fix
Since one of the alleged effects is shrinking nuts, a tinfoil codpiece might be in order too.
Another doom & gloom scenario from One Two. You must be fun to live with, break out the party hats (Wifi resistant) & streamers.
‘European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker plans to write to Orban to congratulate him on his victory, according to a commission spokesman. “The European Union is a union of democracy and values,” he said, adding that defending these principles and values is the duty of all member states…
….But German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who is also the chairman of the Bavarian conservative party CSU, was a very prominent exception.
“I’m happy about his electoral victory, which was once again a very clear one,” Seehofer told reporters in Munich.’
https://www.dw.com/en/european-right-greets-viktor-orbans-hungary-win/a-43307193
‘By the close of the ongoing budget negotiations in November 2018, Germany will have to decide on the future of its armed forces’ long-term recovery. ‘
https://dgap.org/en/think-tank/publications/dgapanalyse-compact/responsible-defense-policy
‘A German return to traditional power politics certainly has its risks. But the alternative is to maintain the status quo and forego a joint EU security policy…’
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/will-germany-permit-joint-european-security/
As they say, & these are just some examples, like begets like (ahem, Brexit folly). Most societies will have unaccountable elites to some degree. It is inevitable that as the current cycle stumbles with the inevitable multiple pressures of a reset, increasingly chaotically, that the pockets of such elites will emboldenly pressure increasingly regressive directions to put off their further social dislocations to the redundancies of unwarranted privilege and having to pay their tab, by filling the vacuums.
The alternative is classical commonwealth trading practises, which derive from civic societal structures & virtues, internally & thus in due course to external added value relations. Despite our own Natia, NZ isn’t far, relatively, from the potential in it’s general cultural fabric & approach to be a contributing template setter to a different type of winning with trading block associations.
Marvelous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR1XV5qGMKk&feature=youtu.be
At Te Matatini.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/02/incredible-video-of-te-reo-maori-rendition-of-bohemian-rhapsody.html?
Outstanding piece of work.
Better than barbershop.
Lovely.
Jonathan Pie on Labour’s Hopeless Eight
and their Conservative Party “allies”.
Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and Diego Sequera discuss
billionaire tax-evader Richard Bastard’s concert for Trump
Also talking about the obscene P.R. stunt with politicized “aid” and the Maidan-style snipers and other provocations of the Venezuelan right wing.
Cool.
https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1099100277834158081
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-spacecraft-returns-its-sharpest-views-of-ultima-thule
A returned Labour-led government and CGT in some form is looking good. My conservative old Dad read out Bernard Hickey’s piece from the other day over dinner tonight and is in total agreement that productivity and investment has been skewed in this country because no-one has had the guts to do it so far.
Also, Ardern and Robertson have played this well because to argue against a CGT on property now looks mean and out of touch.
Once the government have consensus on what parts of the TWG CGT recommendations they are going to proceed with, Ardern needs to prepare a ground-shaking, nation-changing speech about why this simple act is crucial to the healthy future of this country. She needs to have points in it which are easily revisited and recounted every single time they are required over the next 18 months.
The greedy Nat voters who have had their hand out for free gains over the last 20 years will have no shame in demanding their gravy train continues. Their screeching needs to be calmly rebutted.
Jacinda Ardern has the ability to change this nation for the better forever. It’s a 100 year moment coming up folks. Let’s back her.
Yes Rata, and when you get told by Bewildered not to rely on any Government, when he/she is so obviously a Tory LOL LOL. Comments from that person have always dissed the Coalition and lauded National.
We definitely need a Labour led Government for 3 electoral terms to establish a fairer system.
The Kiwi way of life. An inspirational message from Simon Bridges.
https://mobile.twitter.com/simonjbridges/status/1099167384349200384
He’s a superstar!
Jesus, what a car crash.
That’s his response to criticism of his misguided “Kiwi way of life” gaffe? To double down by crying how tough he had it as a kid?
I’m going to miss that dear little lamb when Judith finally eats his liver with wine and chianti.
And that was quite a put down of West Auckland, way to go Soimon.
I assume his PR team didn’t vet that tweet.
It was a put down of West Auckland. He spat it out, or is that just his faux accent?
Also interesting was his claim that his parents didn’t own their home when he was growing up, and that that was “doing it tough” and “being on the breadline”. Only education got him through the horrors of living in a rental!
If today’s Waitakere Man thinks Bridges is batting for him, he is mistaken.
Umm. Lime, disruptive tech star-up, app driven new kids on the block, resort to good old automated email spam to try to drum up support for their failed scooters.
Not sure the council is going to be too happy about considering their case after this stunt.
Why am I underwhelmed by their protest action, and the method of protest, having injured hundreds of people after dumped 1500 scooters on the street on NZ with not a care in the world.
I was out and about in Auckland today and it was Lime-free. It was a beautiful sight.
Get rid of them.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/02/lime-calls-for-transport-revolution-users-to-email-support-to-auckland-council.html
Big Pharma oppression howls in 3… 2….
YouTube on Friday said it would prevent channels that promote anti-vax content from running advertising, saying explicitly that such videos fall under its policy prohibiting the monetization of videos with “dangerous and harmful” content. The move comes after advertisers on YouTube pulled their ads from these videos, following inquiries from BuzzFeed News.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/youtube-just-demonetized-anti-vax-channels
On the night he cheated the Amercian people of the White House Administration.
Eco Maori could see on trumps and his whanau face that they could not beleve there reality they had cheated and WON The President of The Power Fullest Country of the Papatuanuku.
That is a big problem to the welbeing of te mokopuna and the world as he started changing good enviromet rules in favour of his Oil Barron M8 at the expence of te mokopunas future hence trump GETS ECO MAORI,s FULL WRATH P.S A Kumra never tells how sweet it is
US special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report is there in plain view
Donald Trump was in full deflection mode.
The Democrats had blamed Russia for the hacking and release of damaging material on his presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump wasn’t buying it. But on July 27, 2016, midway through a news conference in Florida, Trump decided to entertain the thought for a moment.
“Russia, if you’re listening,” said Trump, looking directly into a television camera, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” – messages Clinton was reported to have deleted from her private email server.
Actually, Russia was doing more than listening: It had been trying to help Republican Trump for months. That very day, hackers working with Russia’s military intelligence tried to break into email accounts associated with Clinton’s personal office.
It was just one small part of a sophisticated election interference operation carried out by the Kremlin – and meticulously chronicled by special counsel Robert Mueller.
RUSSIA, LOOKING TO INTERFERE
The plot began before Bernie Bros and “Lock Her Up,” before MAGA hats and “Lyin’ Ted,” before there was even a thought of Trump versus Clinton in 2016. It started in 2014, in a drab, concrete building in St Petersburg, Russia.
There, a group of tech-savvy Russian nationals, working at an organisation called the Internet Research Agency, prepared “information warfare against the United States of America.” The battleground would be the internet, and the target was the 2016 US presidential election.
Using a game plan honed on its own people, the troll farm prepared to pervert the social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram – that Americans had come to depend on for news, entertainment, friendships and, most relevantly, political discourse.
It was a long game. Starting in mid-2014, employees began studying American political groups to see which messages fell flat and which spread like wildfire across the internet. The organisation surreptitiously dispatched employees to the US – travelling through states such as Nevada, California and Colorado – to collect on-the-ground intelligence about an America that had become deeply divided on gun control, race and politics.
As they gathered the research, the trolls began planning an elaborate deception.
They bought server space and other computer infrastructure in the US to conceal the true origin of the disinformation they planned to pump into America’s social media blood stream. They began preparing networks of fake accounts they would use like sock puppets to masquerade as US citizens.
The Russian trolls set up accounts that appeared to be associated with Black Lives Matter, the Tennessee GOP, Muslim and Christian groups and the American South. By late 2015, as Clinton sparred with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination, and as American media still saw Trump as a longshot to emerge from a crowded Republican field, the Internet Research Agency began secretly buying online ads to promote its social media groups.
Smelling a possible political advantage, the Trump campaign reached out to Roger Stone, a close confidant of Trump’s who is known for his bare-knuckles brand of political mischief. Stone had been claiming to have connections to WikiLeaks, and campaign officials were looking to find out when Wikileaks would drop its next batch of documents.
According to an indictment against Stone, after the first release of DNC documents, “a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information” WikiLeaks had regarding Clinton’s campaign.
In August, Stone began claiming he had inside information into Assange’s plans. At the same time, he was privately sending messages to a radio host and a conservative conspiracy theorist – both of whom had claimed to have connections to WikiLeaks – seeking anything they knew. (No evidence has emerged that these messages made it to Assange).
The deceptions played out as Mueller methodically brought criminal cases. He indicted the Russian hackers. He did the same to the troll farm. He exposed Manafort’s tax cheating and his illicit foreign lobbying, winning at trial and putting the 69-year-old political operative at risk of spending the rest of his life in prison. And one by one, his team got guilty pleas from Flynn, Papadopoulos and others.
Most recently, he indicted Stone, accusing him of witness tampering and lying to Congress about his efforts to glean information about the WikiLeaks disclosures. Despite emails showing him repeatedly discussing WikiLeaks with Trump advisers and others, Stone told lawmakers he had no records of that sort. (Stone has pleaded not guilty.)
In the backdrop of all this is Trump and his family.
Mueller’s grand jury heard testimony from several participants of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting arranged by Trump Jr, but no charges have been filed.
The mercurial president himself has made no secret of his disdain for the Mueller investigation and his efforts to undermine it. Mueller has investigated whether any of Trump’s actions constituted obstruction of justice, but the special counsel hasn’t gone public with what he found. Ka kite ano links below
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/110203530/trump-advisers-lied-and-lied–mueller?rm=a
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/109054622/us-congressman-suggests-trump-adviser-roger-stone-may-have-lied-about-assange?rm=a
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/103293553/democratic-party-files-lawsuit-against-russia-trump-campaign-alleging-conspiracy?rm=a
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/110821699/us-special-counsel-robert-muellers-russia-report-is-there-in-plain-view–but-may-never-be-released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQPwcUdV5T4
Our 21,s Century Communications Device can be used for bad shit but every bit of data can be traced one can not hide anything if the resorces are given to find the data for NOW.
Once Arificial Intelligence is here that phenomen will change and the people in control of that power will have the ultimate power to manipulate te Papatunuku,s DATA Thats a fact.
Today is a day to be thankful to OUR Tipuna for the Mana they gave us as I watch the finals of Te Matatini it gives me a sore face .
For its was our tipuna,s who shaped our Papatunuku to the reality we have to day.
I watch Te Matatini and Know that the whole Papatuanuku can see Te Aotearoa,s Tangata Whenua.s Culture,s and Mana on display this is one of the reason,s that Eco Maori is proud to be a MAORI our Tipuna is another .
It is our tipuna to thank for us still having this GREAT Mana and knowone else they made the best moves they could to give us there Desendants Mokopuna,s the Mana we have Bestowed on MAORIOM TODAY Kia Kaha Ka kite ano P.S Some one is making me hungry
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/iO_WxYC34eM
Kia ora The best tangata on the day won Te Matatini Tamaki Makaurau won the first prize after many years of trying to win the ultimate prize in Maoridom well deserved Eco Maori says Kia kaha to all Ka kite ano
A Eco Maori video for the minute.
https://youtu.be/7UP8tOpV8FQ
Kia ora Newshub Rental housing getting a shake up by our government it is usually the poor people that end up in bad housing as discrimination plays a major part in tangata getting good homes for their tamariki.
YEA the housing short tsunami is still rolling in this will take our government a little while to get undercontrol good housing is getting very hard to find .
Wairoa a beautiful little town got a few whanau there.
Shut up that lawyer putting his spin on that story on R Kelly.
Te Matatini was great and is getting greater the next competition is in this years winners home of Tamaki Makaurau Ka pai
That’s awesome the tamariki getting earimplants his first words Mama so cool it won’t be long before chips implanted in the nervous system that will make us even more advanced .
Ka kite ano
Kia ora The AM Show insulationing a house and having good heating will save the tenants money on power and best of all save on health cost that action will save lives to.
Exactly duncan.
You got your m8 on early duncan no Atoearoa does not trust you simon with the economy. Only people that haven’t grown up like Mark and duncan do they have self-serving egos .
The transport agency is showing your legacy its a mess. Electric cars need to be subsidise to decrease the amount of carbon we burn building 4 Lane highway and scraping our rail is the worst thing one could do to our environment We all know who are national party big donaters are big civil construction companies they would have loved creaming that big flat 2 Lane Highway in Tauranga??? you gifted to them.
I have all ready educated te tangata on the positive,s of a capital gains tax it will slow Aotearoa,s capital from being syphoned off over Seas.
Mark you would not servive all the low down dirty tactics that goes down in the national party it will be like leaving a hyena in a room with a lamb you will not be able servive that lol.
Good on the Stars for showing their support of Harry & Megan and putting on a big baby shower some trolls don’t treat them respectfully.
Yes Phil safety is a Priority as humans don’t have 2 lives so we you must protect te tangata lives no ifs no buts make sure the lime scooters are safe Ka pai. Building a good stadium for our stars in down town Auckland will be a lot better than up grading Eden Park with all the ristrictions that are placed on the uses of Eden Park.
Frank it looks cold up there it’s cold in Rotorua.
Good teacher are a must and teaching tamariki that failure is just part of life.
A good teacher engages students on their level.
Fireworks should be only used by professionals they are big boys toys alot of young children are actually scared of them so are animals. Matariki should be celebrated as it is tangata whenua culture that needs reviveing as te culture has been suppressed.
It Just depended on how hard I’m working at the time if I was not stuffed after a HARD DAYS WORK I would help with most dermestic duties I don’t like folding clothes thou Ka kite ano
He started out with all the power and he thought he was untouchable so much for being the best deal maker in the world he has just pissed the world off and is getting his reward for doing that Ana to kai
You’re fired!’ America has already terminated Trump
The Mueller report looms but the president is doomed anyway – no one who screws the people so blatantly can win re-election
When the public fires a president before election day, as it did Jimmy Carter, Nixon and Herbert Hoover, they don’t send him a letter telling him he’s fired.
They just make him irrelevant. Politics happens around him, despite him. He’s not literally gone but he might as well be.
It’s happened to Trump. The courts and House Democrats are moving against him. Senate Republicans are quietly subverting him. Even Mitch McConnell told him to end the shutdown.
The Fed is running economic policy. Top-level civil servants are managing day-to-day work of the agencies.
Isolated in the White House, distrustful of aides, at odds with intelligence agencies, distant from his cabinet heads, Trump has no system to make or implement decisions.
His tweets don’t create headlines as before. His rallies are ignored. His lies have become old hat.
Dear Mr President,
While many of us disagree on ideology and values, we agree on practical things like obeying the constitution and not letting big corporations and the wealthy run everything.
Your 35-day government shutdown was a senseless abuse of power. So too your “national emergency” to build your wall with money Congress refused to appropriate.
When you passed your tax bill you promised our paychecks would rise by an average of $4,000 but we never got the raise. Our employers used the tax savings to buy back their shares of stock and give themselves raises instead.
Then you fooled us into thinking we were getting a cut by lowering the amounts withheld from our 2018 paychecks. We know that now because we’re getting smaller tax refunds.
At the same time, many big corporations aren’t paying a dime in taxes. Worse yet, they’re getting refunds.
For example, GM is paying zilch and claiming a $104m refund on $11.8bn of profits. Amazon is paying no taxes and claiming a $129m refund on profits of $11.2bn. (This is after New York offered it $3bn to put its second headquarters there.)
They aren’t breaking any tax laws or regulations. That’s because they made the tax laws and regulations. You gave them a free hand.
You’re supposed to be working for us, not for giant corporations. But they’re doing better than ever, as are their top executives and biggest investors. Yet nothing has trickled down. We’re getting shafted.
Which is why more than 75% of us (including 45% who call ourselves Republicans) support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70% tax on dollars earned in excess of $10m a year.
And over 60% of us support Elizabeth Warren’s proposed 2% annual tax on households with a new worth of $50m or more.
You’ve also shown you don’t have a clue about healthcare. You promised us something better than the Affordable Care Act but all you’ve done is whittle it back.
A big reason we gave Democrats control of the House last November was your threat to eliminate protection for people with pre-existing conditions.
Are you even aware that 70% of us now favor Medicare for all?
Most of us don’t pay much attention to national policy but we pay a lot of attention to home economics. You’ve made our own home economics worse.
We’ll give you official notice you’re fired on 3 November 2020, if not before. Until then, you can keep the house and perks, but you’re toast.
Respectfully,
America.
Ka kite ano Ana to kai links below P.S Te Wahine are rallying agains the domanaint old neanderthals who think that,s lifes all about the money over a humane and Equality of life for all
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/24/youre-fired-america-has-already-terminated-trump
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
Kia kaha tamariki it is your Papatuanuku that the neanderthals are making a big mess of at the moment hope is here and now let your voices be heard let everyone know you want a healthy happy humane futures for all this can be OUR Reality as the many can over ride the 00.1% who run the world at the minute . The tipping point is happening{{{ NOW}}}
Christchurch pupils to strike as part of global climate change action
Christchurch pupils will stage a school “strike” and protest in the street as part of a global campaign for action on climate change.
The rally, scheduled for March 15, will run alongside several other marches across the country in Dunedin, Wellington and Auckland as part of a movement known as Schools 4 Climate Action. Tens of thousands of young people in at least two dozen countries and nearly 30 American states plan to skip school on the same day to protest.
Globally, their message is clear. They are sick of waiting for adults to save their world so they are going to do it themselves.
The movement began with 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, from Sweden, skipping class to sit outside government buildings because she believed her country was not following the Paris Climate Agreement. Since then, children across Europe and Australia have been inspired to hold their own demonstrations.
Christchurch event co-ordinator Lucy Gray, 12, said the march was an “awesome opportunity for students to stand up for what they believe in”.
University of Canterbury student Bridget White encouraged people no longer in school to attend the march, which will begin at Cathedral Square at 1pm. There will be music, guest speakers and cultural showcases from schools around the city.
Ka kite ano Links below P.S Eco Maori Knows how tech works and I make sure that te tangata I tau toko is worthy
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/74520024/null?rm=m
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/110702878/christchurch-pupils-to-strike-as-part-of-global-climate-change-action